Boris still looks absolutely dreadful. I don't mean the messy hair, I mean he looks 10 years older and as if he hasn't slept for a month.
New baby effect?
Nope he has always looked like that, it is just that the scales are beginning to fall from peoples' eyes and they are seeing the real, fundamentally unsuitable, package of deceit and lies that is the person of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson
Er, no, since people who like or hate him are able to judge how he looks regardless of his personality or leadership qualities. By your logic people would be incapable of acknowledging if a political opponent was physically attractive or a political hero homely.
Er, yes. The man has always looked a wreck. Many of his apologists have overlooked it. There is plenty of pictorial evidence of his physical appearance before and after the electorate decided he was the less ridiculous of the two ridiculous candidates for our top job. He has deliberately cultivated an appearance of unkemptness which is probably thought by said-apologists to be endearing. The appeal of his ridiculousness is simply wearing thin.
R in England is hovering just under 1. Possibly the super clusters? R in London is 0.69, comfortably under. Number of cases are slowly coming down but not very quickly.
As seems to have been the case for some time, R isn't telling us much about the progress of the epidemic in this country anymore. The lower the total number of cases, the more it is prone to be distorted by localised hotspots - mainly hospitals and care settings, one would've thought, although I dare say that these outbreaks in food processing plants may also be having an effect.
The latter seems to be the entire explanation for the massive spike in R seen in Germany which, of course, has a much lower total number of cases than the UK: the smaller said total, the more R will spike in response to these outbreaks. It frankly doesn't matter much if R reaches 3, 4 or 5 in Germany, provided that those additional cases are effectively quarantined before new chains of transmission can become established.
The desire to portray anti-racism as a "cult" indicates to me how deep seated racism is.
Are you saying it's impossible to have a movement that argues for members of all ethnic groups to treat one another with respect and dignity without having to subscribe to all the monument-destruction, 'White Fragility', foot-washing, language-rewriting, Marxism, cultishness, inherited guilt, reparations-for-ancient-sins bollocks?
Because the former would get close to 99% public support, and could achieve real, tangible progress. It's the latter accretions that turn a good, even inspirational movement into a sinister culture war that otherwise fair-minded people will be driven to resist.
I'm saying that racism is deeply ingrained and one of the main reasons people are so energized to smear and demonize "woke", to mis-characterize and weaponize it as an insult - or just very happily go along with those that do - is because they know this is the case and they are queasy about facing it. Which is a shame because the uncomfortable experience of facing it could, if done in the right way, accelerate us towards the colour blind future that most of us want to see realized one day.
We want to counter woke because it makes assumptions that aren't based on fact.
You have produced little to no evidence to actually show 'deeply ingrained' racism in our society. 50 years ago you would have had a strong case. No you have a very weak case.
There is also a stack of evidence against you. Discrimination is illegal in law, race hate speech is illegal in law. Some of the most powerful positions in our society are held by people from ethnic minorities with the total and full consent of the British people.
Deeply ingrained racism just isn;t there any more.
I'm talking about in people rather than encoded in law.
How prevalent is it in people? Not a provable proposition but I am of the opinion it is very prevalent, albeit perhaps less so in the young.
Of course if you ask 10 random people if they are free of racism, 9 will say they are. But this (imo) is because (i) racism is a difficult thing to admit to and (ii) many people who are not free of racism are genuinely able to convince themselves that they are.
My sense is that the 9/1 split should in truth be the other way - i.e. only around 10% of people are free of racism.
I'm certainly not. And btw I became conscious of this way before "woke" became a thing or a word.
What is your definition of racism?
MY definition? I would say -
Internal. Thinking less well of people because of race.
External. Treating people less well because of race.
And if the internal does not bleed into the external, there is no problem. But of course it often will.
Well, here's a tough decision for a literary agency to take. Do they want to continue to represent Fox Fisher, Drew Davies and Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir, or stick with J. K. Rowling? It's that kind of difficult conundrum which requires true management skill.
Boris still looks absolutely dreadful. I don't mean the messy hair, I mean he looks 10 years older and as if he hasn't slept for a month.
New baby effect?
Nope he has always looked like that, it is just that the scales are beginning to fall from peoples' eyes and they are seeing the real, fundamentally unsuitable, package of deceit and lies that is the person of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson
Er, no, since people who like or hate him are able to judge how he looks regardless of his personality or leadership qualities. By your logic people would be incapable of acknowledging if a political opponent was physically attractive or a political hero homely.
Er, yes. The man has always looked a wreck. Many of his apologists have overlooked it. There is plenty of pictorial evidence of his physical appearance before and after the electorate decided he was the less ridiculous of the two ridiculous candidates for our top job. He has deliberately cultivated an appearance of unkemptness which is probably thought by said-apologists to be endearing. The appeal of his ridiculousness is simply wearing thin.
You're preposterous. You seriously think people are incapable of saying whether someone is looking (relatively) better or worse, or good or bad, and it is based solely on if they like that person or not? That's insanity. No one would ever be able to have a shameful crush on someone they regard as having horrible political views ever again.
Not everything is political for heaven's sake, get a grip. He's always been unkempt, but someone might still believe he is looking particularly bad at present. Likewise, it was perfectly possible to dislike Corbyn intensely and note he had smartened himself up considerably and sometimes even looked quite dapper.
The desire to portray anti-racism as a "cult" indicates to me how deep seated racism is.
Are you saying it's impossible to have a movement that argues for members of all ethnic groups to treat one another with respect and dignity without having to subscribe to all the monument-destruction, 'White Fragility', foot-washing, language-rewriting, Marxism, cultishness, inherited guilt, reparations-for-ancient-sins bollocks?
Because the former would get close to 99% public support, and could achieve real, tangible progress. It's the latter accretions that turn a good, even inspirational movement into a sinister culture war that otherwise fair-minded people will be driven to resist.
I'm saying that racism is deeply ingrained and one of the main reasons people are so energized to smear and demonize "woke", to mis-characterize and weaponize it as an insult - or just very happily go along with those that do - is because they know this is the case and they are queasy about facing it. Which is a shame because the uncomfortable experience of facing it could, if done in the right way, accelerate us towards the colour blind future that most of us want to see realized one day.
I can very much see both points of view on this one.
I followed the Kaepernick protest from Day 1 (I like the NFL and support his former team), and have supported him in what he is doing from the start. I saw people trying to pretend it was something it wasn't, him adjusting it to address those concerns, and the adjustments doing no good. Within a year he was out of the league, and no reasonable person thinks this was because of his decline in play. Kneeling for the anthem was also banned.
The reason for this outcome was feared loss of revenue from boycotts by the right. The inverse of this would be correctly described by the right as giving in to the mob. The phrase "political correctness" would also find its way into the discussion, if a right-wing protester were treated like that. It was shameful.
Given the horror of what happened to George Floyd, on top of all the other horrors which were met with token disapproval, I don't see how any reasonable person can disagree with a revival of the protest, at least in the US. The UK equivalent (e.g. Stop and Search) has not been well articulated. Nevertheless, if I were a footballer, I would be kneeling, even if nobody else was.
However, there has been a nasty undercurrent through it all from the start. I saw people who were sincerely, if irrationally, offended by Kaepernick's actions - viewing them as an insult to their dead loved ones - being instantly labelled as racists and subjected to hate. If I intervened to try to remove the misunderstanding, I merely got targeted by the same hate (only by the purported anti-racists, never by the offended bereaved relative).
This element has grown, and is a significant part of the movement. That doesn't make BLM a cult, any more than it makes the Conservatives an Islamophobic party or Labour an anti-Semitic party, but there's a case to be made that there are cultish elements within it. Those of us who support the goal of BLM have a responsibility to speak out against the hatred.
The stock response is, of course, to complain that people are only speaking out against their hate and not that of the far right thugs who protest against them. Besides this not being true (the opposite is closer to the truth), there's a logic to that course of action anyway. Among people I know, there's unanimity that the far right thugs are vile, so it hardly needs saying.
The question of what is or is not acceptable behaviour in the name of anti-racism is much less well defined (at least among people I know). Personally, my only problem with pulling down statues is that it's a distraction, and I can even empathise with the rioting in the US. But the vile behaviour that I descibed above, towards bereaved people who have a different opinion, crosses the line for me. I would be much firmer in speaking out against it now than I was then.
Great post.
I can see more than one side to this too. It's complex.
But it's the Woke case that most needs making on here - the caricature of it is wrong and imo supplies fuel to nasty racists - so that is what for my sins I'm doing.
Good point.
Among my woke friends, I try to give the anti-woke perspective, and I probably hadn't adjusted to the very different character of the discussion here. Nevertheless, I've already been told that I and "my movement" have already demonstrably lost the argument. If you can see both sides, I guess that just makes you an extremist on both sides, depending on who you're talking to!
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
To be fair, some people are trying to re-write the definition of minority:
- If you are successful, you aren't a Proper Minority. - So Hindu Indians, Chinese, West Africans etc (who are all middle class) aren't Proper Minorities. - Since they are successful in education etc, this can only be by Acting White. - Since they are Acting White, they are white. - Since they are white, they can't be discriminated against. - But they need to be. - Since their success is just more White Privilege.
So that's why they hate Gandhi!
- Successful Independence Leader of 400 million non-white people - Hindu Indian - Successful in education, ie. he was Qualified Lawyer - He normally wore white loincloths, so he was "acting" white...
- But then again Churchill hated him ("a half-naked f*ckir") - So if Churchill hated Gandhi, why do they hate him?
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the solutions demanded are reasonable and practical. I love history - the darker the better, in most cases - so let's get all of it out there in the public eye, although again it can't be told just from one single perspective, whether that's woke or unwoke.
That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
So essentially it's 'Improve your own thoughts and actions, and do the same with those of others'.
To my mind, that is what most normal people have been doing for the last several decades. I'm not terribly keen on 'calling out' others, for the simple reason that if they said or did something that merited calling out I'd probably be heading in the opposite direction from them.
My issues with the above as an answer are:
1. Has anyone told the campaigners or protesters that that's 'what Woke means'? I haven't seen 'reduce racism in personal interactions' anywhere, but I have seen a lot of other stuff that has nothing to do with that. It needs to be purged if you want a hearing on the reasonable proposals.
2. As others have pointed out, human psychology is complex and dwelling obsessively on these issues can have the opposite effect from the one you intend. I was quite politically moderate as an adolescent - it was reading the Guardian regularly that decisively politicized me - against all their positions!
3. The actual eradication of racism seems pretty unachievable. It's a bit like trying to eliminate lying, or farting - it's what humans do, although they can try to minimize it in civilized gatherings. You admit it yourself with your assessment that 9/10 people are racist - in the lingo of pandemics, what's the point in a diagnostic that is so unspecific that it catches almost everyone?
4. I'm instinctively against thought-policing, in line with the Elizabethan eschewal of 'windows into men’s souls'. People should be encouraged to improve themselves, but not shamed if they fall short of some theoretical standard.
A lack of pushback from the UK and others has emboldened its bad behaviour, he writes.
I thought our response to Salisbury pretty robust - Steele comes across as someone peeved governments have not taken his every word as gospel.
If it was gospel he won't be the only one peeved. Questions need to keep being asked. If governments don't have the gumption to do it, good old fashioned investigative journalists need to. They could start by asking Nigel Farage, a man who boasts of his patriotism, why he is so uncritical of Putin.
Well, here's a tough decision for a literary agency to take. Do they want to continue to represent Fox Fisher, Drew Davies and Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir, or stick with J. K. Rowling? It's that kind of difficult conundrum which requires true management skill.
Hmm, a curious piece. "We should start by saying ‘England’ when we mean England, by delivering an English manifesto at the next election to sit alongside the Welsh and Scottish manifestos, and by developing a new plan for the governance of England – the most centralised nation in Europe." But is he a federalist wanting to bring bacj the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy?
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
A white person being aware that they personally are not free of racism does not mean they are ashamed of being white. This does not follow at all.
Out of interest would a white person saying or believing they are free of racism be racist, or simply wrong?
Be racist or right, you mean? - I think most likely is they are wrong (to believe this) and they are racist. But I do vastly prefer "not free of racism" to distinguish this from the accusatory "being racist" or the even harder "a" racist, which most people are not. Subtle language thing but I think it's important.
EDIT - Then key, obviously, is whether they know they are not free of racism when they say they are - thus lying - or they have genuinely convinced themselves that they are. Very different things.
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the solutions demanded are reasonable and practical. I love history - the darker the better, in most cases - so let's get all of it out there in the public eye, although again it can't be told just from one single perspective, whether that's woke or unwoke.
That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
You don't appear to realise that life gives us evidence for anything we believe. If you were a heavy survivalist conspiracy theorist, believe me, you would see evidence of the approaching end times in your daily life. If you believed Germany was out to take over the world a third time, you would see evidence of it everywhere in your daily life. If you're left wing, you see evidence, hard evidence, of the right wing destroying and undermining the public services that your side has worked so hard to build, every day. If you're right wing, you see evidence of the remorseless progress of the blob, strangling innovation and productivity and absorbing more power to itself, every day. And if you believe that people are racist, you will gather evidence of it, some real, some misconstrued, all the time. It's a perception. Whatever we can or cannot do about racism, what we cannot do is be responsible for, or to, people's own perceptions.
But racism does exist and it's a problem. I'm simply putting forward my proposal for solving the problem. Which is for people to drop the "Oh FFS, whatever next?" type response to Woke and instead to become Woke themselves. Or at least be a little open minded about the idea and give it a shot. I fear there will be little progress made from here otherwise. Or (more likely) the progress will come but it will take much longer.
As the essay describes, it displays all the major characteristics of a cult, the only difference is that Wokeness is so much bigger than most cults, and therefore much more dangerous.
In particular, Wokeness uses a concept - White Fragility - to reel people into the guilt by making them feel painfully guilty and inadequate, a crisis which can only be solved by joining the cult, accepting all its nostrums, and thereby gaining redemption. Which is what all successful cults do.
ie White Fragility means you, as a white person, are racist. This racism, your racism, is systemic and invisible and does not have to be proved, it just exists. If you admit you are racist then of course you are evil, and the only way to save yourself is joining the Woke, and admitting sin. If you deny you are racist that is because you have White Fragility, and cannot see that you are racist, which makes you even MORE racist. So, again, you have to join the Woke to save yourself.
It's fiendishly clever and seriously disturbing.
Yes but almost all the white people concerned who go full Woke are Labour or Democrat voters anyway
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
A white person being aware that they personally are not free of racism does not mean they are ashamed of being white. This does not follow at all.
Out of interest would a white person saying or believing they are free of racism be racist, or simply wrong?
Be racist or right, you mean? - I think most likely is that they are wrong (to believe this) and thus that they are racist. But I do vastly prefer "not free of racism" to distinguish this from the accusatory "being racist" or the even harder "a" racist, which most people are not. Subtle language thing but I think it's important.
I was assuming that someone's self assessment of not being racist would not be accepted by others, with a concern that someone not accepting they are not free of racism would be taken as evidence of that position. And I think whilst you might prefer 'not free of racism' to 'being racist' I don't think most people will see such a distinction, or at least that the distinction will not be treated as being that stark (which is another concern I have, where all sins are treated as equal, eg a slaver versus someone who due to to time probably held racist views) by a great many people. I think attempts at subtlety and nuance is treated by one side as avoiding confronting injustice, and the other as concealing harsher accusations, and I don't think either position is entirely baseless.
But I admire and respect your engagement in debate and civilized tone even though instinctively I do not think I can go as far as you do.
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
A white person being aware that they personally are not free of racism does not mean they are ashamed of being white. This does not follow at all.
Yes, accusing all white women of upholding white supremacy isn't trying to shame them at all. Clearly.
Your fellow travellers have jumped off into the deep end.
You can pick out things that I will myself consider OTT. But the thrust of Woke is imo healthy and it's the way to go.
That's a silly article on a serious subject. "(If) (the US) detonates a nuclear weapon in order to look tough, every other nation that signed up to the same Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty as (the US) will also detonate one" But the number of signatory countries is 184, of which 168 have ratified. (The US and China have signed but not ratified.) Trump once asked about using nukes against hurricanes. He may try to provoke a conflict with China, Russia, or some other power - perhaps against an unexpected power - but I have enough optimism left to think he won't be successful. Saving the face of a deranged reality-TV maniac won't be the reason that such a war is allowed to begin. The US military stopped him bringing the troops to the capital city that he felt were needed to protect him in his palace. That's one hell of a weak "wannabe dictator" on his way to "transitioning to greatness".
The "he cares so much about his legacy he won't quit" argument is unconvincing. More likely he will do increasingly crazy stuff until it's obvious he's got to go. My feeling is before the Republican convention is more likely than after. Mary Trump will have considered her timing. Her publisher could have planned the book release for October if they'd wanted, but they chose late July.
Well, here's a tough decision for a literary agency to take. Do they want to continue to represent Fox Fisher, Drew Davies and Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir, or stick with J. K. Rowling? It's that kind of difficult conundrum which requires true management skill.
There's a serious point here though: J K Rowling is as big as they get.
If it was F A Newauthor would they have stuck by him/her as solidly as well?
And this is obviously what a number of academics have also been concerned about in universities. Wrong opinion, not in a small select group that are protected by their status, the mob can have you cancelled e.g. Brett Weinstein. He has lost his academic career.
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the solutions demanded are reasonable and practical. I love history - the darker the better, in most cases - so let's get all of it out there in the public eye, although again it can't be told just from one single perspective, whether that's woke or unwoke.
That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
The trouble with that, and indeed with the whole direction of much of the well-intentioned anti-discrimination initiatives and legislation, is that it pushes people into regarding racial identity as a key dividing issue in society. It seems to me that that just makes things worse - if every official form you fill in asks to for your racial identity, or if as you suggest you consciously consider racial identity in everything, including harmless social interactions, then your racial identity gradually is going to become firstly dividing and then divisive. I'm not at all convinced that this continual picking at the scab is the way to healing the wound.
Indeed, what you describe sounds awfully like gaslighting.
Well, here's a tough decision for a literary agency to take. Do they want to continue to represent Fox Fisher, Drew Davies and Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir, or stick with J. K. Rowling? It's that kind of difficult conundrum which requires true management skill.
There's a serious point here though: J K Rowling is as big as they get.
If it was F A Newauthor would they have stuck by him/her as solidly as well?
And this is obviously what a number of academics have also been concerned about in universities. Wrong opinion, not in a small select group, the mob can have you cancelled e.g. Brett Weinstein. He has lost his academic career.
They need to effectively band together through the Free Speech Union.
They have a great team of lawyers who can help you to fight back.
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the solutions demanded are reasonable and practical. I love history - the darker the better, in most cases - so let's get all of it out there in the public eye, although again it can't be told just from one single perspective, whether that's woke or unwoke.
That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
You don't appear to realise that life gives us evidence for anything we believe. If you were a heavy survivalist conspiracy theorist, believe me, you would see evidence of the approaching end times in your daily life. If you believed Germany was out to take over the world a third time, you would see evidence of it everywhere in your daily life. If you're left wing, you see evidence, hard evidence, of the right wing destroying and undermining the public services that your side has worked so hard to build, every day. If you're right wing, you see evidence of the remorseless progress of the blob, strangling innovation and productivity and absorbing more power to itself, every day. And if you believe that people are racist, you will gather evidence of it, some real, some misconstrued, all the time. It's a perception. Whatever we can or cannot do about racism, what we cannot do is be responsible for, or to, people's own perceptions.
But racism does exist and it's a problem. I'm simply putting forward my proposal for solving the problem. Which is for people to drop the "Oh FFS, whatever next?" type response to Woke and instead to become Woke themselves. Or at least be a little open minded about the idea and give it a shot. I fear there will be little progress made from here otherwise. Or (more likely) the progress will come but it will take much longer.
The only way progress will be made is for the opposite of what you want to see happen, to happen.
The perfect storm for a toe-curling racially insensitive situation to happen is for the black individual to be thinking 'this white person is going to be racist', and for the white person to be thinking 'Oh fuck, this black person is going to think I'm racist'. Some stupidity is almost bound to happen under those circumstances. The way for this situation not to happen, and for a positive interaction to take place, is for neither party to be thinking about racism, for neither to be acutely aware either of their colour or the colour of the individual they are interacting with, and for both to find common ground on something else.
The talk at the moment just increases division between white and black. It is toxically divisive. And it feeds the issue it claims to be trying to resolve.
I am trying to find a book I read a while back. The subject, the Nazi's and how they tried to deal with the anti-social.
Essentially, Germany in the 20 and 30s had the same social problems in some areas that all modern societies have.
Homelessness from mental illness. Drunken, abusive, parents. Children running wild etc.
Enter the Nazis. At first, they took the view of "Must rescue Aryans" - so programs were put in place. Social workers, even special housing.
The problematic people proved intractably problematic.
The special housing was replaced with concrete, un-burnable blocks. Surrounded by barbed wire....
And so it went, round and round the circles of hell. In the end the completely intractable ended up in Dachau.
Finally, with the out break of war, the men were herded into the army. Where they responded to disciple about as well as might be expected. A lot of them ended up being shot - the German army executed 50,000 soldiers in WWII. Many of the survivors ended up in the punishment battalions, and some graduated to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirlewanger_Brigade
Well, here's a tough decision for a literary agency to take. Do they want to continue to represent Fox Fisher, Drew Davies and Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir, or stick with J. K. Rowling? It's that kind of difficult conundrum which requires true management skill.
There's a serious point here though: J K Rowling is as big as they get.
If it was F A Newauthor would they have stuck by him/her as solidly as well?
And this is obviously what a number of academics have also been concerned about in universities. Wrong opinion, not in a small select group, the mob can have you cancelled e.g. Brett Weinstein. He has lost his academic career.
I am heartened that people like Rowling are willing to take a stand - if more of the super rich did, we'd see the end of this wokeocalypse sooner....
The desire to portray anti-racism as a "cult" indicates to me how deep seated racism is.
Are you saying it's impossible to have a movement that argues for members of all ethnic groups to treat one another with respect and dignity without having to subscribe to all the monument-destruction, 'White Fragility', foot-washing, language-rewriting, Marxism, cultishness, inherited guilt, reparations-for-ancient-sins bollocks?
Because the former would get close to 99% public support, and could achieve real, tangible progress. It's the latter accretions that turn a good, even inspirational movement into a sinister culture war that otherwise fair-minded people will be driven to resist.
I'm saying that racism is deeply ingrained and one of the main reasons people are so energized to smear and demonize "woke", to mis-characterize and weaponize it as an insult - or just very happily go along with those that do - is because they know this is the case and they are queasy about facing it. Which is a shame because the uncomfortable experience of facing it could, if done in the right way, accelerate us towards the colour blind future that most of us want to see realized one day.
We want to counter woke because it makes assumptions that aren't based on fact.
You have produced little to no evidence to actually show 'deeply ingrained' racism in our society. 50 years ago you would have had a strong case. No you have a very weak case.
There is also a stack of evidence against you. Discrimination is illegal in law, race hate speech is illegal in law. Some of the most powerful positions in our society are held by people from ethnic minorities with the total and full consent of the British people.
Deeply ingrained racism just isn;t there any more.
I'm talking about in people rather than encoded in law.
How prevalent is it in people? Not a provable proposition but I am of the opinion it is very prevalent, albeit perhaps less so in the young.
Of course if you ask 10 random people if they are free of racism, 9 will say they are. But this (imo) is because (i) racism is a difficult thing to admit to and (ii) many people who are not free of racism are genuinely able to convince themselves that they are.
My sense is that the 9/1 split should in truth be the other way - i.e. only around 10% of people are free of racism.
I'm certainly not. And btw I became conscious of this way before "woke" became a thing or a word.
What is your definition of racism?
MY definition? I would say -
Internal. Thinking less well of people because of race.
External. Treating people less well because of race.
And if the internal does not bleed into the external, there is no problem. But of course it often will.
What we'll get is an "External" becoming a matter of policy against white people, particularly white males, because of the assumption of the "Internal".
And then, we'll get a backlash. Probably a Trump or worse.
Sensible Republicans - of which there are some - should write off the 2016 presidential election and instead should work on two things:
1. Ensuring the Trump Taint does as little damage as possible to the down-ticket elections, especially the Senate races, and
2. Thinking long and hard about how the party can recover from disaster of nominating Trump in the first place. He's toxified the brand to a degree which is even greater than was obvious in 2016. It's not going to be easy to reverse that.
Back in the real world, GOP senators are doing worse than Trump in many recent state polls.
That's not at all surprising. A lot of Trump supporters are suspicious of their GOP Senators, and will not automatically vote for them.
The whole reason Trump is president is because the "sensible Republicans" as Nabavi calls them are more toxic than he is. The idea you get rid of Trump and people will vote for GOP senators is for the birds.
It probably doesn't do a huge amount with his base though, who have been suspicious of the Republican establishment. I think attacks like The Lincoln Project just reinforce that narrative for his supporters.
Ps interesting polling from Michigan - new poll out has Biden only 1 point ahead. That is 2 polls recently with a +1/+2% lead for the Dems in Michigan whereas others have had double digit leads
I thought their 2018 senate polling was strictly mediocre .
Ok, finished the article. What a load of do-hikey. They predicted a 10 point win for Cruz in Texas, he won by 2.5. They predicted a Republican win in Nevada and Arizona. Both Dem wins.
Their 2018 polling was not great.
They were the only pollster to correctly predict Trump would win Pennsylvania and Michigan in 2016 and also the only pollster to correctly predict DeSantis would win Florida in 2018
No, Harris also predicted a DeSantis win. And Harper call PA a tie.
Emphasising their correct calls whilst ignoring their bad misses is the definition of cherry picking.
Hmm, a curious piece. "We should start by saying ‘England’ when we mean England, by delivering an English manifesto at the next election to sit alongside the Welsh and Scottish manifestos, and by developing a new plan for the governance of England – the most centralised nation in Europe." But is he a federalist wanting to bring bacj the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy?
The SLab young team are not entranced with this new direction.
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the solutions demanded are reasonable and practical. I love history - the darker the better, in most cases - so let's get all of it out there in the public eye, although again it can't be told just from one single perspective, whether that's woke or unwoke.
That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
The trouble with that, and indeed with the whole direction of much of the well-intentioned anti-discrimination initiatives and legislation, is that it pushes people into regarding racial identity as a key dividing issue in society. It seems to me that that just makes things worse - if every official form you fill in asks to for your racial identity, or if as you suggest you consciously consider racial identity in everything, including harmless social interactions, then your racial identity gradually is going to become firstly dividing and then divisive. I'm not at all convinced that this continual picking at the scab is the way to healing the wound.
Indeed, what you describe sounds awfully like gaslighting.
"Man accused of assaulting judge Khairi Saadallah denied common assault of District Judge Sophie Toms during a short hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court yesterday. The alleged incident happened at Reading Magistrates' Court on March 25, where the defendant was being sentenced for two previous convictions. Saadallah was remanded in custody. Deputy Senior District Judge Tan Ikram told the court yesterday that he would not be able to hear the trial due to his professional connection with Judge Toms. Saadallah, of Basingstoke Road, Reading, will go on trial at Westminster Magistrates' Court on October 11."
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
To be fair, some people are trying to re-write the definition of minority:
- If you are successful, you aren't a Proper Minority. - So Hindu Indians, Chinese, West Africans etc (who are all middle class) aren't Proper Minorities. - Since they are successful in education etc, this can only be by Acting White. - Since they are Acting White, they are white. - Since they are white, they can't be discriminated against. - But they need to be. - Since their success is just more White Privilege.
So that's why they hate Gandhi!
- Successful Independence Leader of 400 million non-white people - Hindu Indian - Successful in education, ie. he was Qualified Lawyer - He normally wore white loincloths, so he was "acting" white...
- But then again Churchill hated him ("a half-naked f*ckir") - So if Churchill hated Gandhi, why do they hate him?
More to do with the progressive love affair with those who really, really dislike India. Remember the Comment is Free piece after the Mumbai attacks?
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the s That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
That sounds like a mid-seventeenth century puritan calling out sin in other people. You'll make yourself as popular as mid-seventeenth century puritans became.
You're misreading it as something with a "burn the witches" feel to it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To fight racism you need to change hearts & minds such that people (i) recognize it and (ii) truly wish to change things to eliminate it and (iii) accept that one of those things to be changed is themselves.
That's what I'm saying.
Not so much "burn the witch" as chop down the maypole, frown at those who wish to play cards/practise worldly dancing etc.
I would defy anybody to deny that they have ever told or laughed at a racist joke, (I certainly have) and nor am I going to start calling out people who do so.
What if it was clear to you that it was being told in a spirit of supercilious contempt?
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the solutions demanded are reasonable and practical. I love history - the darker the better, in most cases - so let's get all of it out there in the public eye, although again it can't be told just from one single perspective, whether that's woke or unwoke.
That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
You don't appear to realise that life gives us evidence for anything we believe. If you were a heavy survivalist conspiracy theorist, believe me, you would see evidence of the approaching end times in your daily life. If you believed Germany was out to take over the world a third time, you would see evidence of it everywhere in your daily life. If you're left wing, you see evidence, hard evidence, of the right wing destroying and undermining the public services that your side has worked so hard to build, every day. If you're right wing, you see evidence of the remorseless progress of the blob, strangling innovation and productivity and absorbing more power to itself, every day. And if you believe that people are racist, you will gather evidence of it, some real, some misconstrued, all the time. It's a perception. Whatever we can or cannot do about racism, what we cannot do is be responsible for, or to, people's own perceptions.
But racism does exist and it's a problem. I'm simply putting forward my proposal for solving the problem. Which is for people to drop the "Oh FFS, whatever next?" type response to Woke and instead to become Woke themselves. Or at least be a little open minded about the idea and give it a shot. I fear there will be little progress made from here otherwise. Or (more likely) the progress will come but it will take much longer.
Hint: start by dropping the word "Woke".
+1.
The best way to deal with preconceptions that one has but doesn't feel great about having, and that one would actually like to lose, is to meet more people from the group one has the preconceptions about, not to wash their feet, to express some kind of guilt, or to write sonorous declarations, but to converse as equals, which will involve hearing about their own preconceptions, ones that THEY would prefer to lose too. Call it "truth and reconciliation" for the soundbite.
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the s That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
That sounds like a mid-seventeenth century puritan calling out sin in other people. You'll make yourself as popular as mid-seventeenth century puritans became.
You're misreading it as something with a "burn the witches" feel to it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To fight racism you need to change hearts & minds such that people (i) recognize it and (ii) truly wish to change things to eliminate it and (iii) accept that one of those things to be changed is themselves.
That's what I'm saying.
Not so much "burn the witch" as chop down the maypole, frown at those who wish to play cards/practise worldly dancing etc.
I would defy anybody to deny that they have ever told or laughed at a racist joke, (I certainly have) and nor am I going to start calling out people who do so.
What if it was clear to you that it was being told in a spirit of supercilious contempt?
The desire to portray anti-racism as a "cult" indicates to me how deep seated racism is.
Are you saying it's impossible to have a movement that argues for members of all ethnic groups to treat one another with respect and dignity without having to subscribe to all the monument-destruction, 'White Fragility', foot-washing, language-rewriting, Marxism, cultishness, inherited guilt, reparations-for-ancient-sins bollocks?
Because the former would get close to 99% public support, and could achieve real, tangible progress. It's the latter accretions that turn a good, even inspirational movement into a sinister culture war that otherwise fair-minded people will be driven to resist.
I'm saying that racism is deeply ingrained and one of the main reasons people are so energized to smear and demonize "woke", to mis-characterize and weaponize it as an insult - or just very happily go along with those that do - is because they know this is the case and they are queasy about facing it. Which is a shame because the uncomfortable experience of facing it could, if done in the right way, accelerate us towards the colour blind future that most of us want to see realized one day.
I can very much see both points of view on this one.
I followed the Kaepernick protest from Day 1 (I like the NFL and support his former team), and have supported him in what he is doing from the start. I saw people trying to pretend it was something it wasn't, him adjusting it to address those concerns, and the adjustments doing no good. Within a year he was out of the league, and no reasonable person thinks this was because of his decline in play. Kneeling for the anthem was also banned.
The reason for this outcome was feared loss of revenue from boycotts by the right. The inverse of this would be correctly described by the right as giving in to the mob. The phrase "political correctness" would also find its way into the discussion, if a right-wing protester were treated like that. It was shameful.
Given the horror of what happened to George Floyd, on top of all the other horrors which were met with token disapproval, I don't see how any reasonable person can disagree with a revival of the protest, at least in the US. The UK equivalent (e.g. Stop and Search) has not been well articulated. Nevertheless, if I were a footballer, I would be kneeling, even if nobody else was.
However, there has been a nasty undercurrent through it all from the start. I saw people who were sincerely, if irrationally, offended by Kaepernick's actions - viewing them as an insult to their dead loved ones - being instantly labelled as racists and subjected to hate. If I intervened to try to remove the misunderstanding, I merely got targeted by the same hate (only by the purported anti-racists, never by the offended bereaved relative).
This element has grown, and is a significant part of the movement. That doesn't make BLM a cult, any more than it makes the Conservatives an Islamophobic party or Labour an anti-Semitic party, but there's a case to be made that there are cultish elements within it. Those of us who support the goal of BLM have a responsibility to speak out against the hatred.
The stock response is, of course, to complain that people are only speaking out against their hate and not that of the far right thugs who protest against them. Besides this not being true (the opposite is closer to the truth), there's a logic to that course of action anyway. Among people I know, there's unanimity that the far right thugs are vile, so it hardly needs saying.
The question of what is or is not acceptable behaviour in the name of anti-racism is much less well defined (at least among people I know). Personally, my only problem with pulling down statues is that it's a distraction, and I can even empathise with the rioting in the US. But the vile behaviour that I descibed above, towards bereaved people who have a different opinion, crosses the line for me. I would be much firmer in speaking out against it now than I was then.
That's a fair analysis. I would go along with much of that. Woke is maybe not a cult per se, but there are aspects of cultishness mixed with a kind of ground zero, Red Guardy, revolutionary Maoism
I was discussing this very issue with my 20-something Corbynista wife just this morning, and she actually concurred with all that!
"...But there are aspects of cultishness mixed with a kind of ground zero, Red Guardy, revolutionary Maoism."
Sure, but apart from that, what do you think of them, Eadric?
Interestingly, in my experience, many of my left-wing Guardianista friends in private admit they think many of the aspects of the Church of Woke are crazy.
But, that's at odds with what they say publicly about it.
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the solutions demanded are reasonable and practical. I love history - the darker the better, in most cases - so let's get all of it out there in the public eye, although again it can't be told just from one single perspective, whether that's woke or unwoke.
That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
The trouble with that, and indeed with the whole direction of much of the well-intentioned anti-discrimination initiatives and legislation, is that it pushes people into regarding racial identity as a key dividing issue in society. It seems to me that that just makes things worse - if every official form you fill in asks to for your racial identity, or if as you suggest you consciously consider racial identity in everything, including harmless social interactions, then your racial identity gradually is going to become firstly dividing and then divisive. I'm not at all convinced that this continual picking at the scab is the way to healing the wound.
Indeed, what you describe sounds awfully like gaslighting.
The desire to portray anti-racism as a "cult" indicates to me how deep seated racism is.
Are you saying it's impossible to have a movement that argues for members of all ethnic groups to treat one another with respect and dignity without having to subscribe to all the monument-destruction, 'White Fragility', foot-washing, language-rewriting, Marxism, cultishness, inherited guilt, reparations-for-ancient-sins bollocks?
Because the former would get close to 99% public support, and could achieve real, tangible progress. It's the latter accretions that turn a good, even inspirational movement into a sinister culture war that otherwise fair-minded people will be driven to resist.
I'm saying that racism is deeply ingrained and one of the main reasons people are so energized to smear and demonize "woke", to mis-characterize and weaponize it as an insult - or just very happily go along with those that do - is because they know this is the case and they are queasy about facing it. Which is a shame because the uncomfortable experience of facing it could, if done in the right way, accelerate us towards the colour blind future that most of us want to see realized one day.
I can very much see both points of view on this one.
I followed the Kaepernick protest from Day 1 (I like the NFL and support his former team), and have supported him in what he is doing from the start. I saw people trying to pretend it was something it wasn't, him adjusting it to address those concerns, and the adjustments doing no good. Within a year he was out of the league, and no reasonable person thinks this was because of his decline in play. Kneeling for the anthem was also banned.
The reason for this outcome was feared loss of revenue from boycotts by the right. The inverse of this would be correctly described by the right as giving in to the mob. The phrase "political correctness" would also find its way into the discussion, if a right-wing protester were treated like that. It was shameful.
Given the horror of what happened to George Floyd, on top of all the other horrors which were met with token disapproval, I don't see how any reasonable person can disagree with a revival of the protest, at least in the US. The UK equivalent (e.g. Stop and Search) has not been well articulated. Nevertheless, if I were a footballer, I would be kneeling, even if nobody else was.
However, there has been a nasty undercurrent through it all from the start. I saw people who were sincerely, if irrationally, offended by Kaepernick's actions - viewing them as an insult to their dead loved ones - being instantly labelled as racists and subjected to hate. If I intervened to try to remove the misunderstanding, I merely got targeted by the same hate (only by the purported anti-racists, never by the offended bereaved relative).
This element has grown, and is a significant part of the movement. That doesn't make BLM a cult, any more than it makes the Conservatives an Islamophobic party or Labour an anti-Semitic party, but there's a case to be made that there are cultish elements within it. Those of us who support the goal of BLM have a responsibility to speak out against the hatred.
The stock response is, of course, to complain that people are only speaking out against their hate and not that of the far right thugs who protest against them. Besides this not being true (the opposite is closer to the truth), there's a logic to that course of action anyway. Among people I know, there's unanimity that the far right thugs are vile, so it hardly needs saying.
The question of what is or is not acceptable behaviour in the name of anti-racism is much less well defined (at least among people I know). Personally, my only problem with pulling down statues is that it's a distraction, and I can even empathise with the rioting in the US. But the vile behaviour that I descibed above, towards bereaved people who have a different opinion, crosses the line for me. I would be much firmer in speaking out against it now than I was then.
That's a fair analysis. I would go along with much of that. Woke is maybe not a cult per se, but there are aspects of cultishness mixed with a kind of ground zero, Red Guardy, revolutionary Maoism
I was discussing this very issue with my 20-something Corbynista wife just this morning, and she actually concurred with all that!
"...But there are aspects of cultishness mixed with a kind of ground zero, Red Guardy, revolutionary Maoism."
Sure, but apart from that, what do you think of them, Eadric?
Interestingly, in my experience, many of my left-wing Guardianista friends in private admit they think many of the aspects of the Church of Woke are crazy.
But, that's at odds with what they say publicly about it.
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the solutions demanded are reasonable and practical. I love history - the darker the better, in most cases - so let's get all of it out there in the public eye, although again it can't be told just from one single perspective, whether that's woke or unwoke.
That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
So essentially it's 'Improve your own thoughts and actions, and do the same with those of others'.
To my mind, that is what most normal people have been doing for the last several decades. I'm not terribly keen on 'calling out' others, for the simple reason that if they said or did something that merited calling out I'd probably be heading in the opposite direction from them.
My issues with the above as an answer are:
1. Has anyone told the campaigners or protesters that that's 'what Woke means'? I haven't seen 'reduce racism in personal interactions' anywhere, but I have seen a lot of other stuff that has nothing to do with that. It needs to be purged if you want a hearing on the reasonable proposals.
2. As others have pointed out, human psychology is complex and dwelling obsessively on these issues can have the opposite effect from the one you intend. I was quite politically moderate as an adolescent - it was reading the Guardian regularly that decisively politicized me - against all their positions!
3. The actual eradication of racism seems pretty unachievable. It's a bit like trying to eliminate lying, or farting - it's what humans do, although they can try to minimize it in civilized gatherings. You admit it yourself with your assessment that 9/10 people are racist - in the lingo of pandemics, what's the point in a diagnostic that is so unspecific that it catches almost everyone?
4. I'm instinctively against thought-policing, in line with the Elizabethan eschewal of 'windows into men’s souls'. People should be encouraged to improve themselves, but not shamed if they fall short of some theoretical standard.
Re: "Elizabethan eschewal of 'windows into men’s souls'" - so Woke Church every Sunday by state fiat. If you don't stand there listening to sermons on your sins, for 4 hours, enormous fines for Recusancy....
Sensible Republicans - of which there are some - should write off the 2016 presidential election and instead should work on two things:
1. Ensuring the Trump Taint does as little damage as possible to the down-ticket elections, especially the Senate races, and
2. Thinking long and hard about how the party can recover from disaster of nominating Trump in the first place. He's toxified the brand to a degree which is even greater than was obvious in 2016. It's not going to be easy to reverse that.
Back in the real world, GOP senators are doing worse than Trump in many recent state polls.
That's not at all surprising. A lot of Trump supporters are suspicious of their GOP Senators, and will not automatically vote for them.
The whole reason Trump is president is because the "sensible Republicans" as Nabavi calls them are more toxic than he is. The idea you get rid of Trump and people will vote for GOP senators is for the birds.
It probably doesn't do a huge amount with his base though, who have been suspicious of the Republican establishment. I think attacks like The Lincoln Project just reinforce that narrative for his supporters.
Ps interesting polling from Michigan - new poll out has Biden only 1 point ahead. That is 2 polls recently with a +1/+2% lead for the Dems in Michigan whereas others have had double digit leads
I thought their 2018 senate polling was strictly mediocre .
Ok, finished the article. What a load of do-hikey. They predicted a 10 point win for Cruz in Texas, he won by 2.5. They predicted a Republican win in Nevada and Arizona. Both Dem wins.
Their 2018 polling was not great.
They were the only pollster to correctly predict Trump would win Pennsylvania and Michigan in 2016 and also the only pollster to correctly predict DeSantis would win Florida in 2018
No, Harris also predicted a DeSantis win. And Harper call PA a tie.
Emphasising their correct calls whilst ignoring their bad misses is the definition of cherry picking.
All I want is the discipline of objective historical inquiry taught at schools (free of the politics, please), for the facts to be faithfully relayed, and for the truth to be pursued wherever it might lie.
The French government know that the first person in the firing line would be Napoleon (a man who reinstated slavery after it had been abolished, never mind the millions of deaths he caused in his military adventures across Europe).
Sensible Republicans - of which there are some - should write off the 2016 presidential election and instead should work on two things:
1. Ensuring the Trump Taint does as little damage as possible to the down-ticket elections, especially the Senate races, and
2. Thinking long and hard about how the party can recover from disaster of nominating Trump in the first place. He's toxified the brand to a degree which is even greater than was obvious in 2016. It's not going to be easy to reverse that.
Back in the real world, GOP senators are doing worse than Trump in many recent state polls.
That's not at all surprising. A lot of Trump supporters are suspicious of their GOP Senators, and will not automatically vote for them.
The whole reason Trump is president is because the "sensible Republicans" as Nabavi calls them are more toxic than he is. The idea you get rid of Trump and people will vote for GOP senators is for the birds.
It probably doesn't do a huge amount with his base though, who have been suspicious of the Republican establishment. I think attacks like The Lincoln Project just reinforce that narrative for his supporters.
Ps interesting polling from Michigan - new poll out has Biden only 1 point ahead. That is 2 polls recently with a +1/+2% lead for the Dems in Michigan whereas others have had double digit leads
I thought their 2018 senate polling was strictly mediocre .
Ok, finished the article. What a load of do-hikey. They predicted a 10 point win for Cruz in Texas, he won by 2.5. They predicted a Republican win in Nevada and Arizona. Both Dem wins.
Their 2018 polling was not great.
They were the only pollster to correctly predict Trump would win Pennsylvania and Michigan in 2016 and also the only pollster to correctly predict DeSantis would win Florida in 2018
No, Harris also predicted a DeSantis win. And Harper call PA a tie.
Emphasising their correct calls whilst ignoring their bad misses is the definition of cherry picking.
A tie is not a win as Trafalgar group predicted for Trump in PA in 2016, it was the only pollster who correctly predicted Trump would win the Electoral College
The desire to portray anti-racism as a "cult" indicates to me how deep seated racism is.
Are you saying it's impossible to have a movement that argues for members of all ethnic groups to treat one another with respect and dignity without having to subscribe to all the monument-destruction, 'White Fragility', foot-washing, language-rewriting, Marxism, cultishness, inherited guilt, reparations-for-ancient-sins bollocks?
Because the former would get close to 99% public support, and could achieve real, tangible progress. It's the latter accretions that turn a good, even inspirational movement into a sinister culture war that otherwise fair-minded people will be driven to resist.
I'm saying that racism is deeply ingrained and one of the main reasons people are so energized to smear and demonize "woke", to mis-characterize and weaponize it as an insult - or just very happily go along with those that do - is because they know this is the case and they are queasy about facing it. Which is a shame because the uncomfortable experience of facing it could, if done in the right way, accelerate us towards the colour blind future that most of us want to see realized one day.
We want to counter woke because it makes assumptions that aren't based on fact.
You have produced little to no evidence to actually show 'deeply ingrained' racism in our society. 50 years ago you would have had a strong case. No you have a very weak case.
There is also a stack of evidence against you. Discrimination is illegal in law, race hate speech is illegal in law. Some of the most powerful positions in our society are held by people from ethnic minorities with the total and full consent of the British people.
Deeply ingrained racism just isn;t there any more.
I'm talking about in people rather than encoded in law.
How prevalent is it in people? Not a provable proposition but I am of the opinion it is very prevalent, albeit perhaps less so in the young.
Of course if you ask 10 random people if they are free of racism, 9 will say they are. But this (imo) is because (i) racism is a difficult thing to admit to and (ii) many people who are not free of racism are genuinely able to convince themselves that they are.
My sense is that the 9/1 split should in truth be the other way - i.e. only around 10% of people are free of racism.
I'm certainly not. And btw I became conscious of this way before "woke" became a thing or a word.
What is your definition of racism?
MY definition? I would say -
Internal. Thinking less well of people because of race.
External. Treating people less well because of race.
And if the internal does not bleed into the external, there is no problem. But of course it often will.
What we'll get is an "External" becoming a matter of policy against white people, particularly white males, because of the assumption of the "Internal".
And then, we'll get a backlash. Probably a Trump or worse.
Healthy?
No. Stupid.
Not the plan at all. That's your fearful - and imo illogical - projection.
The desire to portray anti-racism as a "cult" indicates to me how deep seated racism is.
Are you saying it's impossible to have a movement that argues for members of all ethnic groups to treat one another with respect and dignity without having to subscribe to all the monument-destruction, 'White Fragility', foot-washing, language-rewriting, Marxism, cultishness, inherited guilt, reparations-for-ancient-sins bollocks?
Because the former would get close to 99% public support, and could achieve real, tangible progress. It's the latter accretions that turn a good, even inspirational movement into a sinister culture war that otherwise fair-minded people will be driven to resist.
I'm saying that racism is deeply ingrained and one of the main reasons people are so energized to smear and demonize "woke", to mis-characterize and weaponize it as an insult - or just very happily go along with those that do - is because they know this is the case and they are queasy about facing it. Which is a shame because the uncomfortable experience of facing it could, if done in the right way, accelerate us towards the colour blind future that most of us want to see realized one day.
I can very much see both points of view on this one.
I followed the Kaepernick protest from Day 1 (I like the NFL and support his former team), and have supported him in what he is doing from the start. I saw people trying to pretend it was something it wasn't, him adjusting it to address those concerns, and the adjustments doing no good. Within a year he was out of the league, and no reasonable person thinks this was because of his decline in play. Kneeling for the anthem was also banned.
The reason for this outcome was feared loss of revenue from boycotts by the right. The inverse of this would be correctly described by the right as giving in to the mob. The phrase "political correctness" would also find its way into the discussion, if a right-wing protester were treated like that. It was shameful.
Given the horror of what happened to George Floyd, on top of all the other horrors which were met with token disapproval, I don't see how any reasonable person can disagree with a revival of the protest, at least in the US. The UK equivalent (e.g. Stop and Search) has not been well articulated. Nevertheless, if I were a footballer, I would be kneeling, even if nobody else was.
However, there has been a nasty undercurrent through it all from the start. I saw people who were sincerely, if irrationally, offended by Kaepernick's actions - viewing them as an insult to their dead loved ones - being instantly labelled as racists and subjected to hate. If I intervened to try to remove the misunderstanding, I merely got targeted by the same hate (only by the purported anti-racists, never by the offended bereaved relative).
This element has grown, and is a significant part of the movement. That doesn't make BLM a cult, any more than it makes the Conservatives an Islamophobic party or Labour an anti-Semitic party, but there's a case to be made that there are cultish elements within it. Those of us who support the goal of BLM have a responsibility to speak out against the hatred.
The stock response is, of course, to complain that people are only speaking out against their hate and not that of the far right thugs who protest against them. Besides this not being true (the opposite is closer to the truth), there's a logic to that course of action anyway. Among people I know, there's unanimity that the far right thugs are vile, so it hardly needs saying.
The question of what is or is not acceptable behaviour in the name of anti-racism is much less well defined (at least among people I know). Personally, my only problem with pulling down statues is that it's a distraction, and I can even empathise with the rioting in the US. But the vile behaviour that I descibed above, towards bereaved people who have a different opinion, crosses the line for me. I would be much firmer in speaking out against it now than I was then.
That's a fair analysis. I would go along with much of that. Woke is maybe not a cult per se, but there are aspects of cultishness mixed with a kind of ground zero, Red Guardy, revolutionary Maoism
I was discussing this very issue with my 20-something Corbynista wife just this morning, and she actually concurred with all that!
"...But there are aspects of cultishness mixed with a kind of ground zero, Red Guardy, revolutionary Maoism."
Sure, but apart from that, what do you think of them, Eadric?
Interestingly, in my experience, many of my left-wing Guardianista friends in private admit they think many of the aspects of the Church of Woke are crazy.
But, that's at odds with what they say publicly about it.
Yes, I've found that as well. That thinking is beginning to crossover into real life as well now, I've noticed much less BLM engagement from friends who were very much publicly in favour at the beginning. The wokeism is really putting them off, unsurprisingly trying to make people feel guilty for the colour of their skin doesn't win many supporters from that race.
The desire to portray anti-racism as a "cult" indicates to me how deep seated racism is.
Are you saying it's impossible to have a movement that argues for members of all ethnic groups to treat one another with respect and dignity without having to subscribe to all the monument-destruction, 'White Fragility', foot-washing, language-rewriting, Marxism, cultishness, inherited guilt, reparations-for-ancient-sins bollocks?
Because the former would get close to 99% public support, and could achieve real, tangible progress. It's the latter accretions that turn a good, even inspirational movement into a sinister culture war that otherwise fair-minded people will be driven to resist.
I'm saying that racism is deeply ingrained and one of the main reasons people are so energized to smear and demonize "woke", to mis-characterize and weaponize it as an insult - or just very happily go along with those that do - is because they know this is the case and they are queasy about facing it. Which is a shame because the uncomfortable experience of facing it could, if done in the right way, accelerate us towards the colour blind future that most of us want to see realized one day.
We want to counter woke because it makes assumptions that aren't based on fact.
You have produced little to no evidence to actually show 'deeply ingrained' racism in our society. 50 years ago you would have had a strong case. No you have a very weak case.
There is also a stack of evidence against you. Discrimination is illegal in law, race hate speech is illegal in law. Some of the most powerful positions in our society are held by people from ethnic minorities with the total and full consent of the British people.
Deeply ingrained racism just isn;t there any more.
I'm talking about in people rather than encoded in law.
How prevalent is it in people? Not a provable proposition but I am of the opinion it is very prevalent, albeit perhaps less so in the young.
Of course if you ask 10 random people if they are free of racism, 9 will say they are. But this (imo) is because (i) racism is a difficult thing to admit to and (ii) many people who are not free of racism are genuinely able to convince themselves that they are.
My sense is that the 9/1 split should in truth be the other way - i.e. only around 10% of people are free of racism.
I'm certainly not. And btw I became conscious of this way before "woke" became a thing or a word.
What is your definition of racism?
MY definition? I would say -
Internal. Thinking less well of people because of race.
External. Treating people less well because of race.
And if the internal does not bleed into the external, there is no problem. But of course it often will.
Then there is a problem then. I dislike the usual internal-external understanding. It underpins the usually unstated but nonetheless very widespread notion that most people are a little bit racist individually but they know it's a bad thing so let's draw up rules that at least curb the expression of this side of their nature. It would be better if for example those who feel a bit intimidated or uneasy when they're in a room full of people of a different ethnicity but who do not consider themselves to be at all favourable towards racism were encouraged to express their feelings rather than being condemned as soon as they open their mouths, because psychologically and for obvious damned reasons that only encourages what is "repressed" to dig itself in and fester and, in some, eventually to seek an outlet.
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
To be fair, some people are trying to re-write the definition of minority:
- If you are successful, you aren't a Proper Minority. - So Hindu Indians, Chinese, West Africans etc (who are all middle class) aren't Proper Minorities. - Since they are successful in education etc, this can only be by Acting White. - Since they are Acting White, they are white. - Since they are white, they can't be discriminated against. - But they need to be. - Since their success is just more White Privilege.
So that's why they hate Gandhi!
- Successful Independence Leader of 400 million non-white people - Hindu Indian - Successful in education, ie. he was Qualified Lawyer - He normally wore white loincloths, so he was "acting" white...
- But then again Churchill hated him ("a half-naked f*ckir") - So if Churchill hated Gandhi, why do they hate him?
Gandhi is rightly admired, for the reasons you say, and also because of his peaceful form of revolution. I don't think that means that any criticism of him on the issue of race is laughable. A fairly balanced article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-34265882
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the solutions demanded are reasonable and practical. I love history - the darker the better, in most cases - so let's get all of it out there in the public eye, although again it can't be told just from one single perspective, whether that's woke or unwoke.
That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
The trouble with that, and indeed with the whole direction of much of the well-intentioned anti-discrimination initiatives and legislation, is that it pushes people into regarding racial identity as a key dividing issue in society. It seems to me that that just makes things worse - if every official form you fill in asks to for your racial identity, or if as you suggest you consciously consider racial identity in everything, including harmless social interactions, then your racial identity gradually is going to become firstly dividing and then divisive. I'm not at all convinced that this continual picking at the scab is the way to healing the wound.
Indeed, what you describe sounds awfully like gaslighting.
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the s That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
That sounds like a mid-seventeenth century puritan calling out sin in other people. You'll make yourself as popular as mid-seventeenth century puritans became.
You're misreading it as something with a "burn the witches" feel to it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To fight racism you need to change hearts & minds such that people (i) recognize it and (ii) truly wish to change things to eliminate it and (iii) accept that one of those things to be changed is themselves.
That's what I'm saying.
Not so much "burn the witch" as chop down the maypole, frown at those who wish to play cards/practise worldly dancing etc.
I would defy anybody to deny that they have ever told or laughed at a racist joke, (I certainly have) and nor am I going to start calling out people who do so.
What if it was clear to you that it was being told in a spirit of supercilious contempt?
What is the definition of a racist joke?
You go first this time. I'm pooped and need a cold one.
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
To be fair, some people are trying to re-write the definition of minority:
- If you are successful, you aren't a Proper Minority. - So Hindu Indians, Chinese, West Africans etc (who are all middle class) aren't Proper Minorities. - Since they are successful in education etc, this can only be by Acting White. - Since they are Acting White, they are white. - Since they are white, they can't be discriminated against. - But they need to be. - Since their success is just more White Privilege.
So that's why they hate Gandhi!
- Successful Independence Leader of 400 million non-white people - Hindu Indian - Successful in education, ie. he was Qualified Lawyer - He normally wore white loincloths, so he was "acting" white...
- But then again Churchill hated him ("a half-naked f*ckir") - So if Churchill hated Gandhi, why do they hate him?
Gandhi is rightly admired, for the reasons you say, and also because of his peaceful form of revolution. I don't think that means that any criticism of him on the issue of race is laughable. A fairly balanced article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-34265882
I think the point is that many people, albeit not of Gandhi's fame or achievements, may be liable to criticism on the issue or race without facing the sort of unnuanced reaction about their positive accomplishments that activists generally present. It's 'X did/said Y and that's all that matters' in word and deed.
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the s That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
That sounds like a mid-seventeenth century puritan calling out sin in other people. You'll make yourself as popular as mid-seventeenth century puritans became.
You're misreading it as something with a "burn the witches" feel to it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To fight racism you need to change hearts & minds such that people (i) recognize it and (ii) truly wish to change things to eliminate it and (iii) accept that one of those things to be changed is themselves.
That's what I'm saying.
Not so much "burn the witch" as chop down the maypole, frown at those who wish to play cards/practise worldly dancing etc.
I would defy anybody to deny that they have ever told or laughed at a racist joke, (I certainly have) and nor am I going to start calling out people who do so.
What if it was clear to you that it was being told in a spirit of supercilious contempt?
What is the definition of a racist joke?
The only joke I knew in French is racist about Belgians.
Sensible Republicans - of which there are some - should write off the 2016 presidential election and instead should work on two things:
1. Ensuring the Trump Taint does as little damage as possible to the down-ticket elections, especially the Senate races, and
2. Thinking long and hard about how the party can recover from disaster of nominating Trump in the first place. He's toxified the brand to a degree which is even greater than was obvious in 2016. It's not going to be easy to reverse that.
Back in the real world, GOP senators are doing worse than Trump in many recent state polls.
That's not at all surprising. A lot of Trump supporters are suspicious of their GOP Senators, and will not automatically vote for them.
The whole reason Trump is president is because the "sensible Republicans" as Nabavi calls them are more toxic than he is. The idea you get rid of Trump and people will vote for GOP senators is for the birds.
It probably doesn't do a huge amount with his base though, who have been suspicious of the Republican establishment. I think attacks like The Lincoln Project just reinforce that narrative for his supporters.
Ps interesting polling from Michigan - new poll out has Biden only 1 point ahead. That is 2 polls recently with a +1/+2% lead for the Dems in Michigan whereas others have had double digit leads
I thought their 2018 senate polling was strictly mediocre .
Ok, finished the article. What a load of do-hikey. They predicted a 10 point win for Cruz in Texas, he won by 2.5. They predicted a Republican win in Nevada and Arizona. Both Dem wins.
Their 2018 polling was not great.
They were the only pollster to correctly predict Trump would win Pennsylvania and Michigan in 2016 and also the only pollster to correctly predict DeSantis would win Florida in 2018
No, Harris also predicted a DeSantis win. And Harper call PA a tie.
Emphasising their correct calls whilst ignoring their bad misses is the definition of cherry picking.
HYUFD cherry picking - surely not
Well, he might need the extra income. And who wouldn’t want to go for a traditional fruit picking summer holiday for three weeks rather than a beach in Morocco for a week followed by a fortnight in Luton?
For those who wish to follow his example, apply here:
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the s That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
That sounds like a mid-seventeenth century puritan calling out sin in other people. You'll make yourself as popular as mid-seventeenth century puritans became.
You're misreading it as something with a "burn the witches" feel to it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To fight racism you need to change hearts & minds such that people (i) recognize it and (ii) truly wish to change things to eliminate it and (iii) accept that one of those things to be changed is themselves.
That's what I'm saying.
Not so much "burn the witch" as chop down the maypole, frown at those who wish to play cards/practise worldly dancing etc.
I would defy anybody to deny that they have ever told or laughed at a racist joke, (I certainly have) and nor am I going to start calling out people who do so.
What if it was clear to you that it was being told in a spirit of supercilious contempt?
What is the definition of a racist joke?
The only joke I knew in French is racist about Belgians.
The punch line is “Pas de Calais”.
Being Welsh, I know lots of racist and xenophobic jokes about the English.
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
To be fair, some people are trying to re-write the definition of minority:
- If you are successful, you aren't a Proper Minority. - So Hindu Indians, Chinese, West Africans etc (who are all middle class) aren't Proper Minorities. - Since they are successful in education etc, this can only be by Acting White. - Since they are Acting White, they are white. - Since they are white, they can't be discriminated against. - But they need to be. - Since their success is just more White Privilege.
So that's why they hate Gandhi!
- Successful Independence Leader of 400 million non-white people - Hindu Indian - Successful in education, ie. he was Qualified Lawyer - He normally wore white loincloths, so he was "acting" white...
- But then again Churchill hated him ("a half-naked f*ckir") - So if Churchill hated Gandhi, why do they hate him?
Gandhi is rightly admired, for the reasons you say, and also because of his peaceful form of revolution. I don't think that means that any criticism of him on the issue of race is laughable. A fairly balanced article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-34265882
As usual Orwell was right - "And if, as may happen, India and Britain finally settle down into a decent and friendly relationship, will this be partly because Gandhi, by keeping up his struggle obstinately and without hatred, disinfected the political air? That one even thinks of asking such questions indicates his stature."
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the s That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
That sounds like a mid-seventeenth century puritan calling out sin in other people. You'll make yourself as popular as mid-seventeenth century puritans became.
You're misreading it as something with a "burn the witches" feel to it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To fight racism you need to change hearts & minds such that people (i) recognize it and (ii) truly wish to change things to eliminate it and (iii) accept that one of those things to be changed is themselves.
That's what I'm saying.
Not so much "burn the witch" as chop down the maypole, frown at those who wish to play cards/practise worldly dancing etc.
I would defy anybody to deny that they have ever told or laughed at a racist joke, (I certainly have) and nor am I going to start calling out people who do so.
What if it was clear to you that it was being told in a spirit of supercilious contempt?
What is the definition of a racist joke?
The only joke I knew in French is racist about Belgians.
The punch line is “Pas de Calais”.
Being Welsh, I know lots of racist and xenophobic jokes about the English.
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the s That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
That sounds like a mid-seventeenth century puritan calling out sin in other people. You'll make yourself as popular as mid-seventeenth century puritans became.
You're misreading it as something with a "burn the witches" feel to it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To fight racism you need to change hearts & minds such that people (i) recognize it and (ii) truly wish to change things to eliminate it and (iii) accept that one of those things to be changed is themselves.
That's what I'm saying.
Not so much "burn the witch" as chop down the maypole, frown at those who wish to play cards/practise worldly dancing etc.
I would defy anybody to deny that they have ever told or laughed at a racist joke, (I certainly have) and nor am I going to start calling out people who do so.
What if it was clear to you that it was being told in a spirit of supercilious contempt?
What is the definition of a racist joke?
The only joke I knew in French is racist about Belgians.
The punch line is “Pas de Calais”.
Being Welsh, I know lots of racist and xenophobic jokes about the English.
Does that count?
Do jokes against Parisians by people from Mersault count?
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the s That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
That sounds like a mid-seventeenth century puritan calling out sin in other people. You'll make yourself as popular as mid-seventeenth century puritans became.
You're misreading it as something with a "burn the witches" feel to it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To fight racism you need to change hearts & minds such that people (i) recognize it and (ii) truly wish to change things to eliminate it and (iii) accept that one of those things to be changed is themselves.
That's what I'm saying.
Not so much "burn the witch" as chop down the maypole, frown at those who wish to play cards/practise worldly dancing etc.
I would defy anybody to deny that they have ever told or laughed at a racist joke, (I certainly have) and nor am I going to start calling out people who do so.
What if it was clear to you that it was being told in a spirit of supercilious contempt?
What is the definition of a racist joke?
The only joke I knew in French is racist about Belgians.
The punch line is “Pas de Calais”.
Being Welsh, I know lots of racist and xenophobic jokes about the English.
Does that count?
A Welsh mate told me a good one with the punchline, “Have you seen the effing neighbours?”
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the s That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
That sounds like a mid-seventeenth century puritan calling out sin in other people. You'll make yourself as popular as mid-seventeenth century puritans became.
You're misreading it as something with a "burn the witches" feel to it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To fight racism you need to change hearts & minds such that people (i) recognize it and (ii) truly wish to change things to eliminate it and (iii) accept that one of those things to be changed is themselves.
That's what I'm saying.
Not so much "burn the witch" as chop down the maypole, frown at those who wish to play cards/practise worldly dancing etc.
I would defy anybody to deny that they have ever told or laughed at a racist joke, (I certainly have) and nor am I going to start calling out people who do so.
What if it was clear to you that it was being told in a spirit of supercilious contempt?
What is the definition of a racist joke?
The only joke I knew in French is racist about Belgians.
The punch line is “Pas de Calais”.
Being Welsh, I know lots of racist and xenophobic jokes about the English.
What?! And I thought the Welsh knew their place. Unbelievable.
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
A white person being aware that they personally are not free of racism does not mean they are ashamed of being white. This does not follow at all.
Out of interest would a white person saying or believing they are free of racism be racist, or simply wrong?
Be racist or right, you mean? - I think most likely is that they are wrong (to believe this) and thus that they are racist. But I do vastly prefer "not free of racism" to distinguish this from the accusatory "being racist" or the even harder "a" racist, which most people are not. Subtle language thing but I think it's important.
I was assuming that someone's self assessment of not being racist would not be accepted by others, with a concern that someone not accepting they are not free of racism would be taken as evidence of that position. And I think whilst you might prefer 'not free of racism' to 'being racist' I don't think most people will see such a distinction, or at least that the distinction will not be treated as being that stark (which is another concern I have, where all sins are treated as equal, eg a slaver versus someone who due to to time probably held racist views) by a great many people. I think attempts at subtlety and nuance is treated by one side as avoiding confronting injustice, and the other as concealing harsher accusations, and I don't think either position is entirely baseless.
But I admire and respect your engagement in debate and civilized tone even though instinctively I do not think I can go as far as you do.
We need about ten words to replace racism. Im sure there are more but each of the actions below are very different but it wouldnt be incorrect to see them all as racism. I think everyone does some of the below.
1) Violent and aggressive acts against people of a different race 2) Deliberately avoiding people of different race and not wanting them in your life 3) Direct Discrimination against people of different race 4) Indirect and institutional discrimination against people of different race 5) Using outdated language about race that others may find offensive but not intended to cause offence 6) Using deliberately offensive language against other races 7) Conscious observations of racial differences, without thinking about broader context 8) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is aware of and lets happen 9) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is unaware of 10) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is aware of and tries to control/mitigate
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
A white person being aware that they personally are not free of racism does not mean they are ashamed of being white. This does not follow at all.
Out of interest would a white person saying or believing they are free of racism be racist, or simply wrong?
Be racist or right, you mean? - I think most likely is that they are wrong (to believe this) and thus that they are racist. But I do vastly prefer "not free of racism" to distinguish this from the accusatory "being racist" or the even harder "a" racist, which most people are not. Subtle language thing but I think it's important.
I was assuming that someone's self assessment of not being racist would not be accepted by others, with a concern that someone not accepting they are not free of racism would be taken as evidence of that position. And I think whilst you might prefer 'not free of racism' to 'being racist' I don't think most people will see such a distinction, or at least that the distinction will not be treated as being that stark (which is another concern I have, where all sins are treated as equal, eg a slaver versus someone who due to to time probably held racist views) by a great many people. I think attempts at subtlety and nuance is treated by one side as avoiding confronting injustice, and the other as concealing harsher accusations, and I don't think either position is entirely baseless.
But I admire and respect your engagement in debate and civilized tone even though instinctively I do not think I can go as far as you do.
We need about ten words to replace racism. Im sure there are more but each of the actions below are very different but it wouldnt be incorrect to see them all as racism. I think everyone does some of the below.
1) Violent and aggressive acts against people of a different race 2) Deliberately avoiding people of different race and not wanting them in your life 3) Direct Discrimination against people of different race 4) Indirect and institutional discrimination against people of different race 5) Using outdated language about race that others may find offensive but not intended to cause offence 6) Using deliberately offensive language against other races 7) Conscious observations of racial differences, without thinking about broader context 8) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is aware of and lets happen 9) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is unaware of 10) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is aware of and tries to control/mitigate
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
To be fair, some people are trying to re-write the definition of minority:
- If you are successful, you aren't a Proper Minority. - So Hindu Indians, Chinese, West Africans etc (who are all middle class) aren't Proper Minorities. - Since they are successful in education etc, this can only be by Acting White. - Since they are Acting White, they are white. - Since they are white, they can't be discriminated against. - But they need to be. - Since their success is just more White Privilege.
So that's why they hate Gandhi!
- Successful Independence Leader of 400 million non-white people - Hindu Indian - Successful in education, ie. he was Qualified Lawyer - He normally wore white loincloths, so he was "acting" white...
- But then again Churchill hated him ("a half-naked f*ckir") - So if Churchill hated Gandhi, why do they hate him?
More to do with the progressive love affair with those who really, really dislike India. Remember the Comment is Free piece after the Mumbai attacks?
Presumably people debating this know why Gandhi is persona non-grata.
It's because he wrote this sort of thing: "Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian location should be chosen for dumping down all kaffirs of the town, passes my comprehension. Of course, under my suggestion, the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location. About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians I must confess I feel most strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population, and it is an undue tax on even the proverbial patience of my countrymen."
Like nearly all the stuff, it is quotemined, shorn of historical context, stated ignoring the rest of the man's career, shouted loudly through a megaphone, and anyone asking sensible questions is branded as supporting the alleged evil.
That is, the bog standard campaigning playbook for this type of campaign, as used by the whole lot of so called 'liberation' campaigners.
Very difficult indeed to take seriously. Unfortunately it often works on institutions suffering from lack of confidence or cowardice.
There may be some merit in the campaign, but when the nature of it is trying to rub things out rather than think about them, it is tricky to see through the surface.
As the essay describes, it displays all the major characteristics of a cult, the only difference is that Wokeness is so much bigger than most cults, and therefore much more dangerous.
In particular, Wokeness uses a concept - White Fragility - to reel people into the guilt by making them feel painfully guilty and inadequate, a crisis which can only be solved by joining the cult, accepting all its nostrums, and thereby gaining redemption. Which is what all successful cults do.
ie White Fragility means you, as a white person, are racist. This racism, your racism, is systemic and invisible and does not have to be proved, it just exists. If you admit you are racist then of course you are evil, and the only way to save yourself is joining the Woke, and admitting sin. If you deny you are racist that is because you have White Fragility, and cannot see that you are racist, which makes you even MORE racist. So, again, you have to join the Woke to save yourself.
It's fiendishly clever and seriously disturbing.
Chapo Trap House recently critiqued White Fragility from a leftist materialist perspective. They focus on the background of the author as somebody who is paid by large corporations to come and give implicit bias training, which (they claim) the evidence shows is ineffective, and say the true reason for it is to reduce the corporation's liability, and to potentially provide ammunition if they want to fire people. They talk about how the book is essentially a sales pitch to affluent liberals to keep paying for courses like the author's as a kind of temporary absolution- a bitter medicine that you know works because it's painful, but ultimately doesn't actually do anything to help minorities. They say that on the contrary, real anti-racist work that actually helps people should feel good.
I found it a lot more convincing than your hysteria.
That's interesting. Hadn't come across that.
You are not too enamoured with "affluent white liberals", I sense.
All puts me in mind of this. I saw an article in The Guardian (where else !!!) about it.
You cause immeasurable pain and damage to Black, Indigenous and brown women. We are here to sit down with you to candidly discuss how *exactly* you cause this pain and damage. The dinners are a starting point. A place to start thinking through how you actively uphold white supremacy every minute of every day.
What you do after you leave the dinner is up to you.
Sincerely,
Regina Jackson & Saira Rao'
Definitely not a cult or brainwashing, nooo....
Oh no !!!!
Here is the Guardian article too. It is a gem. It's like an episode of Brass Eye has become reality.
That story's almost literally beyond belief - a group of rich modern-day performative Flagellants, seeking punishment for sins so abstruse they need to have others articulate them for them.
'“I want to hire people of color. Not because I want to be … a white savior. I have explored my need for validation … I’m working through that … Yeah. Um … I’m struggling,” she stutters, before finally giving up.'
The hosts have “scarcely been able to take a break since it started in spring 2019”... “15 dinners” have been held since then
Just over one a month... really hard work... for your $37,500...
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the s That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
That sounds like a mid-seventeenth century puritan calling out sin in other people. You'll make yourself as popular as mid-seventeenth century puritans became.
You're misreading it as something with a "burn the witches" feel to it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To fight racism you need to change hearts & minds such that people (i) recognize it and (ii) truly wish to change things to eliminate it and (iii) accept that one of those things to be changed is themselves.
That's what I'm saying.
Not so much "burn the witch" as chop down the maypole, frown at those who wish to play cards/practise worldly dancing etc.
I would defy anybody to deny that they have ever told or laughed at a racist joke, (I certainly have) and nor am I going to start calling out people who do so.
What if it was clear to you that it was being told in a spirit of supercilious contempt?
What is the definition of a racist joke?
The only joke I knew in French is racist about Belgians.
The punch line is “Pas de Calais”.
Being Welsh, I know lots of racist and xenophobic jokes about the English.
Does that count?
A Welsh mate told me a good one with the punchline, “Have you seen the effing neighbours?”
I remember one about some Welsh people with the punchline “twenty five years of marriage and you’ve only just noticed?” I don’t think that was racist though: it just relied on a society where people were usually known by their occupations.
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
To be fair, some people are trying to re-write the definition of minority:
- If you are successful, you aren't a Proper Minority. - So Hindu Indians, Chinese, West Africans etc (who are all middle class) aren't Proper Minorities. - Since they are successful in education etc, this can only be by Acting White. - Since they are Acting White, they are white. - Since they are white, they can't be discriminated against. - But they need to be. - Since their success is just more White Privilege.
So that's why they hate Gandhi!
- Successful Independence Leader of 400 million non-white people - Hindu Indian - Successful in education, ie. he was Qualified Lawyer - He normally wore white loincloths, so he was "acting" white...
- But then again Churchill hated him ("a half-naked f*ckir") - So if Churchill hated Gandhi, why do they hate him?
Gandhi is rightly admired, for the reasons you say, and also because of his peaceful form of revolution. I don't think that means that any criticism of him on the issue of race is laughable. A fairly balanced article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-34265882
I think the point is that many people, albeit not of Gandhi's fame or achievements, may be liable to criticism on the issue or race without facing the sort of unnuanced reaction about their positive accomplishments that activists generally present. It's 'X did/said Y and that's all that matters' in word and deed.
I couldn't agree more. But I don't think we should react against that to the point where we come up with contorted explanations to explain why people have a problem with him.
On topic, I think Biden is now narrow favourite but it's beginning to get to a position where the value is with Trump at below a 40% implied chance.
One reason is that Trump's popularity/unpopularity is quite firmly baked in but Biden's less so. Trump has drifted down in recent weeks but - looking over the four years - the lovers and haters are remarkably stable in their view over time compared with other presidencies. And, crucially, Trump is a very effective negative campaigner - it would surprise me if he could significantly rescue his own ratings, but not if he could drag Biden's down into the gutter with him. If both candidates have negative 10% or worse net approval... well, one of them still has to win as 2016 showed.
The other is that the evidence seems to be that he's much more likely to repeat the trick of losing the popular vote but winning the electoral college than Biden is to do that trick on him. That's based on Biden's state lead being a bit less typically in the key states he must swing than nationally. He might still win it with a 2-3% national lead... but you'd not be all that confident, whereas you'd be very confident if Trump won it by 2-3% that he'd win the electoral college.
Obama voters Vote for Obama / Vote against Romney / No Opinion 80% / 18% / 2%
Romney voters Vote for Romney / vote against Obama / No Opinion 60% / 38% / 2%
They also have other historical figures which largely confirm this relationship to the victor. Generally, it's much better to have people voting for you than against the other guy.
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the s That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
That sounds like a mid-seventeenth century puritan calling out sin in other people. You'll make yourself as popular as mid-seventeenth century puritans became.
You're misreading it as something with a "burn the witches" feel to it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To fight racism you need to change hearts & minds such that people (i) recognize it and (ii) truly wish to change things to eliminate it and (iii) accept that one of those things to be changed is themselves.
That's what I'm saying.
Not so much "burn the witch" as chop down the maypole, frown at those who wish to play cards/practise worldly dancing etc.
I would defy anybody to deny that they have ever told or laughed at a racist joke, (I certainly have) and nor am I going to start calling out people who do so.
What if it was clear to you that it was being told in a spirit of supercilious contempt?
What is the definition of a racist joke?
The only joke I knew in French is racist about Belgians.
The punch line is “Pas de Calais”.
Being Welsh, I know lots of racist and xenophobic jokes about the English.
Does that count?
A Welsh mate told me a good one with the punchline, “Have you seen the effing neighbours?”
There's a good one about the Romans trying to invade Wales that ends with the line: 'Caesar, it was a trap. There were two of them.'
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
A white person being aware that they personally are not free of racism does not mean they are ashamed of being white. This does not follow at all.
Out of interest would a white person saying or believing they are free of racism be racist, or simply wrong?
Be racist or right, you mean? - I think most likely is that they are wrong (to believe this) and thus that they are racist. But I do vastly prefer "not free of racism" to distinguish this from the accusatory "being racist" or the even harder "a" racist, which most people are not. Subtle language thing but I think it's important.
I was assuming that someone's self assessment of not being racist would not be accepted by others, with a concern that someone not accepting they are not free of racism would be taken as evidence of that position. And I think whilst you might prefer 'not free of racism' to 'being racist' I don't think most people will see such a distinction, or at least that the distinction will not be treated as being that stark (which is another concern I have, where all sins are treated as equal, eg a slaver versus someone who due to to time probably held racist views) by a great many people. I think attempts at subtlety and nuance is treated by one side as avoiding confronting injustice, and the other as concealing harsher accusations, and I don't think either position is entirely baseless.
But I admire and respect your engagement in debate and civilized tone even though instinctively I do not think I can go as far as you do.
We need about ten words to replace racism. Im sure there are more but each of the actions below are very different but it wouldnt be incorrect to see them all as racism. I think everyone does some of the below.
1) Violent and aggressive acts against people of a different race 2) Deliberately avoiding people of different race and not wanting them in your life 3) Direct Discrimination against people of different race 4) Indirect and institutional discrimination against people of different race 5) Using outdated language about race that others may find offensive but not intended to cause offence 6) Using deliberately offensive language against other races 7) Conscious observations of racial differences, without thinking about broader context 8) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is aware of and lets happen 9) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is unaware of 10) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is aware of and tries to control/mitigate
We don't need any of those IMO.
If people are discussing is this or that racist, or how racist is our society then without a shared understanding and agreement about what racism is, why would they ever agree? Language is preventing much common ground being reached. Breaking it down into specifics helps find that common ground.
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
A white person being aware that they personally are not free of racism does not mean they are ashamed of being white. This does not follow at all.
Out of interest would a white person saying or believing they are free of racism be racist, or simply wrong?
Be racist or right, you mean? - I think most likely is that they are wrong (to believe this) and thus that they are racist. But I do vastly prefer "not free of racism" to distinguish this from the accusatory "being racist" or the even harder "a" racist, which most people are not. Subtle language thing but I think it's important.
I was assuming that someone's self assessment of not being racist would not be accepted by others, with a concern that someone not accepting they are not free of racism would be taken as evidence of that position. And I think whilst you might prefer 'not free of racism' to 'being racist' I don't think most people will see such a distinction, or at least that the distinction will not be treated as being that stark (which is another concern I have, where all sins are treated as equal, eg a slaver versus someone who due to to time probably held racist views) by a great many people. I think attempts at subtlety and nuance is treated by one side as avoiding confronting injustice, and the other as concealing harsher accusations, and I don't think either position is entirely baseless.
But I admire and respect your engagement in debate and civilized tone even though instinctively I do not think I can go as far as you do.
We need about ten words to replace racism. Im sure there are more but each of the actions below are very different but it wouldnt be incorrect to see them all as racism. I think everyone does some of the below.
1) Violent and aggressive acts against people of a different race 2) Deliberately avoiding people of different race and not wanting them in your life 3) Direct Discrimination against people of different race 4) Indirect and institutional discrimination against people of different race 5) Using outdated language about race that others may find offensive but not intended to cause offence 6) Using deliberately offensive language against other races 7) Conscious observations of racial differences, without thinking about broader context 8) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is aware of and lets happen 9) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is unaware of 10) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is aware of and tries to control/mitigate
We don't need any of those IMO.
If people are discussing is this or that racist, or how racist is our society then without a shared understanding and agreement about what racism is, why would they ever agree? Language is preventing much common ground being reached. Breaking it down into specifics helps find that common ground.
I tend to agree, but I think it runs into some of the same problems as when people talk about murders or rapes as being of different levels, as some people will think it trivialises, which is not the intent.
The desire to portray anti-racism as a "cult" indicates to me how deep seated racism is.
Are you saying it's impossible to have a movement that argues for members of all ethnic groups to treat one another with respect and dignity without having to subscribe to all the monument-destruction, 'White Fragility', foot-washing, language-rewriting, Marxism, cultishness, inherited guilt, reparations-for-ancient-sins bollocks?
Because the former would get close to 99% public support, and could achieve real, tangible progress. It's the latter accretions that turn a good, even inspirational movement into a sinister culture war that otherwise fair-minded people will be driven to resist.
I'm saying that racism is deeply ingrained and one of the main reasons people are so energized to smear and demonize "woke", to mis-characterize and weaponize it as an insult - or just very happily go along with those that do - is because they know this is the case and they are queasy about facing it. Which is a shame because the uncomfortable experience of facing it could, if done in the right way, accelerate us towards the colour blind future that most of us want to see realized one day.
We want to counter woke because it makes assumptions that aren't based on fact.
You have produced little to no evidence to actually show 'deeply ingrained' racism in our society. 50 years ago you would have had a strong case. No you have a very weak case.
There is also a stack of evidence against you. Discrimination is illegal in law, race hate speech is illegal in law. Some of the most powerful positions in our society are held by people from ethnic minorities with the total and full consent of the British people.
Deeply ingrained racism just isn;t there any more.
I'm talking about in people rather than encoded in law.
How prevalent is it in people? Not a provable proposition but I am of the opinion it is very prevalent, albeit perhaps less so in the young.
Of course if you ask 10 random people if they are free of racism, 9 will say they are. But this (imo) is because (i) racism is a difficult thing to admit to and (ii) many people who are not free of racism are genuinely able to convince themselves that they are.
My sense is that the 9/1 split should in truth be the other way - i.e. only around 10% of people are free of racism.
I'm certainly not. And btw I became conscious of this way before "woke" became a thing or a word.
What is your definition of racism?
MY definition? I would say -
Internal. Thinking less well of people because of race.
External. Treating people less well because of race.
And if the internal does not bleed into the external, there is no problem. But of course it often will.
Then there is a problem then. I dislike the usual internal-external understanding. It underpins the usually unstated but nonetheless very widespread notion that most people are a little bit racist individually but they know it's a bad thing so let's draw up rules that at least curb the expression of this side of their nature. It would be better if for example those who feel a bit intimidated or uneasy when they're in a room full of people of a different ethnicity but who do not consider themselves to be at all favourable towards racism were encouraged to express their feelings rather than being condemned as soon as they open their mouths, because psychologically and for obvious damned reasons that only encourages what is "repressed" to dig itself in and fester and, in some, eventually to seek an outlet.
Yes I agree. If what I've been writing implies otherwise I've messed up.
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the s That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
That sounds like a mid-seventeenth century puritan calling out sin in other people. You'll make yourself as popular as mid-seventeenth century puritans became.
You're misreading it as something with a "burn the witches" feel to it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To fight racism you need to change hearts & minds such that people (i) recognize it and (ii) truly wish to change things to eliminate it and (iii) accept that one of those things to be changed is themselves.
That's what I'm saying.
Not so much "burn the witch" as chop down the maypole, frown at those who wish to play cards/practise worldly dancing etc.
I would defy anybody to deny that they have ever told or laughed at a racist joke, (I certainly have) and nor am I going to start calling out people who do so.
What if it was clear to you that it was being told in a spirit of supercilious contempt?
What is the definition of a racist joke?
You go first this time. I'm pooped and need a cold one.
I honestly don't think it is possible to create one. I have watched (and prodded with savage glee) as lawyers have tied themselves in knots about how to ban a single word.
The suggested law they came up with was quite definitely racist.
Obama voters Vote for Obama / Vote against Romney / No Opinion 80% / 18% / 2%
Romney voters Vote for Romney / vote against Obama / No Opinion 60% / 38% / 2%
They also have other historical figures which largely confirm this relationship to the victor. Generally, it's much better to have people voting for you than against the other guy.
Indeed eg people voted for George W Bush but against him by voting for Kerry, for Obama but against him by voting for Romney, for Trump biut against him by voting for Biden.
Bill Clinton in 1992 and Reagan in 1980 both had more people voting for them and were the only candidates to beat incumbent presidents in the last 40 years
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
A white person being aware that they personally are not free of racism does not mean they are ashamed of being white. This does not follow at all.
Out of interest would a white person saying or believing they are free of racism be racist, or simply wrong?
Be racist or right, you mean? - I think most likely is that they are wrong (to believe this) and thus that they are racist. But I do vastly prefer "not free of racism" to distinguish this from the accusatory "being racist" or the even harder "a" racist, which most people are not. Subtle language thing but I think it's important.
I was assuming that someone's self assessment of not being racist would not be accepted by others, with a concern that someone not accepting they are not free of racism would be taken as evidence of that position. And I think whilst you might prefer 'not free of racism' to 'being racist' I don't think most people will see such a distinction, or at least that the distinction will not be treated as being that stark (which is another concern I have, where all sins are treated as equal, eg a slaver versus someone who due to to time probably held racist views) by a great many people. I think attempts at subtlety and nuance is treated by one side as avoiding confronting injustice, and the other as concealing harsher accusations, and I don't think either position is entirely baseless.
But I admire and respect your engagement in debate and civilized tone even though instinctively I do not think I can go as far as you do.
We need about ten words to replace racism. Im sure there are more but each of the actions below are very different but it wouldnt be incorrect to see them all as racism. I think everyone does some of the below.
1) Violent and aggressive acts against people of a different race 2) Deliberately avoiding people of different race and not wanting them in your life 3) Direct Discrimination against people of different race 4) Indirect and institutional discrimination against people of different race 5) Using outdated language about race that others may find offensive but not intended to cause offence 6) Using deliberately offensive language against other races 7) Conscious observations of racial differences, without thinking about broader context 8) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is aware of and lets happen 9) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is unaware of 10) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is aware of and tries to control/mitigate
We don't need any of those IMO.
If people are discussing is this or that racist, or how racist is our society then without a shared understanding and agreement about what racism is, why would they ever agree? Language is preventing much common ground being reached. Breaking it down into specifics helps find that common ground.
I tend to agree, but I think it runs into some of the same problems as when people talk about murders or rapes as being of different levels, as some people will think it trivialises, which is not the intent.
Racism is a hugely complex problem so yes clearer language wont solve everything and creates new issues but would bring about an improvement on the current debates.
Sensible Republicans - of which there are some - should write off the 2016 presidential election and instead should work on two things:
1. Ensuring the Trump Taint does as little damage as possible to the down-ticket elections, especially the Senate races, and
2. Thinking long and hard about how the party can recover from disaster of nominating Trump in the first place. He's toxified the brand to a degree which is even greater than was obvious in 2016. It's not going to be easy to reverse that.
Back in the real world, GOP senators are doing worse than Trump in many recent state polls.
That's not at all surprising. A lot of Trump supporters are suspicious of their GOP Senators, and will not automatically vote for them.
The whole reason Trump is president is because the "sensible Republicans" as Nabavi calls them are more toxic than he is. The idea you get rid of Trump and people will vote for GOP senators is for the birds.
It probably doesn't do a huge amount with his base though, who have been suspicious of the Republican establishment. I think attacks like The Lincoln Project just reinforce that narrative for his supporters.
Ps interesting polling from Michigan - new poll out has Biden only 1 point ahead. That is 2 polls recently with a +1/+2% lead for the Dems in Michigan whereas others have had double digit leads
I thought their 2018 senate polling was strictly mediocre .
Ok, finished the article. What a load of do-hikey. They predicted a 10 point win for Cruz in Texas, he won by 2.5. They predicted a Republican win in Nevada and Arizona. Both Dem wins.
Their 2018 polling was not great.
They were the only pollster to correctly predict Trump would win Pennsylvania and Michigan in 2016 and also the only pollster to correctly predict DeSantis would win Florida in 2018
No, Harris also predicted a DeSantis win. And Harper call PA a tie.
Emphasising their correct calls whilst ignoring their bad misses is the definition of cherry picking.
A tie is not a win as Trafalgar group predicted for Trump in PA in 2016, it was the only pollster who correctly predicted Trump would win the Electoral College
Given the margin by which Trump won Harper was more accurate than Trafalgar.
Trafalgar predicted a 5 point Trump win in Nevada, completely dreadful.
Obama voters Vote for Obama / Vote against Romney / No Opinion 80% / 18% / 2%
Romney voters Vote for Romney / vote against Obama / No Opinion 60% / 38% / 2%
They also have other historical figures which largely confirm this relationship to the victor. Generally, it's much better to have people voting for you than against the other guy.
Indeed eg people voted for George W Bush but against him by voting for Kerry, for Obama but against him by voting for Romney, for Trump biut against him by voting for Biden.
Bill Clinton in 1992 and Reagan in 1980 both had more people voting for them and were the only candidates to beat incumbent presidents in the last 40 years
With the possible exception of Hilary when she found out about Monica.
I'm not quite sure what the UK government is supposed to do about the head of the US government being... what he is.
Burn the White House again. Steal more spoons?*
*I went to school with someone who claimed that his family had a set of silver tea spoons from the sack of the White House.
My god father’s wife is from an old American family.
She went to a dinner at a very grand house in the U.K. and remarked in passing that it was funny to see her family crest on the silver
She woke up the next morning to find the full carafe outside her door with a note of apology from the host... apparently one of his ancestors had “acquired” it in the US in the 1770s...
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
A white person being aware that they personally are not free of racism does not mean they are ashamed of being white. This does not follow at all.
Out of interest would a white person saying or believing they are free of racism be racist, or simply wrong?
Be racist or right, you mean? - I think most likely is that they are wrong (to believe this) and thus that they are racist. But I do vastly prefer "not free of racism" to distinguish this from the accusatory "being racist" or the even harder "a" racist, which most people are not. Subtle language thing but I think it's important.
I was assuming that someone's self assessment of not being racist would not be accepted by others, with a concern that someone not accepting they are not free of racism would be taken as evidence of that position. And I think whilst you might prefer 'not free of racism' to 'being racist' I don't think most people will see such a distinction, or at least that the distinction will not be treated as being that stark (which is another concern I have, where all sins are treated as equal, eg a slaver versus someone who due to to time probably held racist views) by a great many people. I think attempts at subtlety and nuance is treated by one side as avoiding confronting injustice, and the other as concealing harsher accusations, and I don't think either position is entirely baseless.
But I admire and respect your engagement in debate and civilized tone even though instinctively I do not think I can go as far as you do.
We need about ten words to replace racism. Im sure there are more but each of the actions below are very different but it wouldnt be incorrect to see them all as racism. I think everyone does some of the below.
1) Violent and aggressive acts against people of a different race 2) Deliberately avoiding people of different race and not wanting them in your life 3) Direct Discrimination against people of different race 4) Indirect and institutional discrimination against people of different race 5) Using outdated language about race that others may find offensive but not intended to cause offence 6) Using deliberately offensive language against other races 7) Conscious observations of racial differences, without thinking about broader context 8) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is aware of and lets happen 9) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is unaware of 10) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is aware of and tries to control/mitigate
I actually agree with this - greater linguistic precision will lead to greater clarity of thought.
{Subconscious bias against PB posters of different tribe that the person is aware of and tries to control/mitigate}
As it's my turn to do our Skype quiz this week, I've included two rounds on being 'Woke'. there's a bonus point for spotting the Woke view that I made up. I doubt anyone will pick it up.
The desire to portray anti-racism as a "cult" indicates to me how deep seated racism is.
Are you saying it's impossible to have a movement that argues for members of all ethnic groups to treat one another with respect and dignity without having to subscribe to all the monument-destruction, 'White Fragility', foot-washing, language-rewriting, Marxism, cultishness, inherited guilt, reparations-for-ancient-sins bollocks?
Because the former would get close to 99% public support, and could achieve real, tangible progress. It's the latter accretions that turn a good, even inspirational movement into a sinister culture war that otherwise fair-minded people will be driven to resist.
I'm saying that racism is deeply ingrained and one of the main reasons people are so energized to smear and demonize "woke", to mis-characterize and weaponize it as an insult - or just very happily go along with those that do - is because they know this is the case and they are queasy about facing it. Which is a shame because the uncomfortable experience of facing it could, if done in the right way, accelerate us towards the colour blind future that most of us want to see realized one day.
We want to counter woke because it makes assumptions that aren't based on fact.
You have produced little to no evidence to actually show 'deeply ingrained' racism in our society. 50 years ago you would have had a strong case. No you have a very weak case.
There is also a stack of evidence against you. Discrimination is illegal in law, race hate speech is illegal in law. Some of the most powerful positions in our society are held by people from ethnic minorities with the total and full consent of the British people.
Deeply ingrained racism just isn;t there any more.
I'm talking about in people rather than encoded in law.
How prevalent is it in people? Not a provable proposition but I am of the opinion it is very prevalent, albeit perhaps less so in the young.
Of course if you ask 10 random people if they are free of racism, 9 will say they are. But this (imo) is because (i) racism is a difficult thing to admit to and (ii) many people who are not free of racism are genuinely able to convince themselves that they are.
My sense is that the 9/1 split should in truth be the other way - i.e. only around 10% of people are free of racism.
I'm certainly not. And btw I became conscious of this way before "woke" became a thing or a word.
What is your definition of racism?
MY definition? I would say -
Internal. Thinking less well of people because of race.
External. Treating people less well because of race.
And if the internal does not bleed into the external, there is no problem. But of course it often will.
What we'll get is an "External" becoming a matter of policy against white people, particularly white males, because of the assumption of the "Internal".
And then, we'll get a backlash. Probably a Trump or worse.
Healthy?
No. Stupid.
Not the plan at all. That's your fearful - and imo illogical - projection.
Of course it's not your plan. Because you're assuming your favoured conclusion will result through a policy of categorising people by race in order to solve what you consider to be a bigger injustice.
That will lead to injustices of its own - by design - and lots of people won't like it. They will resent the policymakers and those who benefit from it too.
So it's more likely to fuel racial tensions, which is why I oppose it so strongly.
The way to do this is to get people talking and get them to understand each other's perspective better, and take them on a journey with you.
As the essay describes, it displays all the major characteristics of a cult, the only difference is that Wokeness is so much bigger than most cults, and therefore much more dangerous.
In particular, Wokeness uses a concept - White Fragility - to reel people into the guilt by making them feel painfully guilty and inadequate, a crisis which can only be solved by joining the cult, accepting all its nostrums, and thereby gaining redemption. Which is what all successful cults do.
ie White Fragility means you, as a white person, are racist. This racism, your racism, is systemic and invisible and does not have to be proved, it just exists. If you admit you are racist then of course you are evil, and the only way to save yourself is joining the Woke, and admitting sin. If you deny you are racist that is because you have White Fragility, and cannot see that you are racist, which makes you even MORE racist. So, again, you have to join the Woke to save yourself.
It's fiendishly clever and seriously disturbing.
Yes but almost all the white people concerned who go full Woke are Labour or Democrat voters anyway
Sensible Republicans - of which there are some - should write off the 2016 presidential election and instead should work on two things:
1. Ensuring the Trump Taint does as little damage as possible to the down-ticket elections, especially the Senate races, and
2. Thinking long and hard about how the party can recover from disaster of nominating Trump in the first place. He's toxified the brand to a degree which is even greater than was obvious in 2016. It's not going to be easy to reverse that.
Back in the real world, GOP senators are doing worse than Trump in many recent state polls.
That's not at all surprising. A lot of Trump supporters are suspicious of their GOP Senators, and will not automatically vote for them.
The whole reason Trump is president is because the "sensible Republicans" as Nabavi calls them are more toxic than he is. The idea you get rid of Trump and people will vote for GOP senators is for the birds.
It probably doesn't do a huge amount with his base though, who have been suspicious of the Republican establishment. I think attacks like The Lincoln Project just reinforce that narrative for his supporters.
Ps interesting polling from Michigan - new poll out has Biden only 1 point ahead. That is 2 polls recently with a +1/+2% lead for the Dems in Michigan whereas others have had double digit leads
I thought their 2018 senate polling was strictly mediocre .
Ok, finished the article. What a load of do-hikey. They predicted a 10 point win for Cruz in Texas, he won by 2.5. They predicted a Republican win in Nevada and Arizona. Both Dem wins.
Their 2018 polling was not great.
They were the only pollster to correctly predict Trump would win Pennsylvania and Michigan in 2016 and also the only pollster to correctly predict DeSantis would win Florida in 2018
No, Harris also predicted a DeSantis win. And Harper call PA a tie.
Emphasising their correct calls whilst ignoring their bad misses is the definition of cherry picking.
A tie is not a win as Trafalgar group predicted for Trump in PA in 2016, it was the only pollster who correctly predicted Trump would win the Electoral College
Given the margin by which Trump won Harper was more accurate than Trafalgar.
Trafalgar predicted a 5 point Trump win in Nevada, completely dreadful.
Trafalgar group predicted Trump would win PA, Harper did not predict he would win PA, Trump won PA, Trafalgar group was correct.
I repeat, Trafalgar group was the only pollster that correctly predicted Trump would win Florida, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania in 2016 and therefore the Electoral College.
Even winning Nevada Hillary still lost the EC due to the above states
Obama voters Vote for Obama / Vote against Romney / No Opinion 80% / 18% / 2%
Romney voters Vote for Romney / vote against Obama / No Opinion 60% / 38% / 2%
They also have other historical figures which largely confirm this relationship to the victor. Generally, it's much better to have people voting for you than against the other guy.
I think there's a large element of "it depends" in there.
Because I think that it ultimately depends on the depth of dislike people have for a candidate.
Let me give you an example. Back in 1997, Martin Bell stood against Neil Hamilton in Tatton. Few people voted for Martin Bell. Lots of people voted against Neil Hamilton. And the latter lost badly.
So, really the question is - for the 65% of the population that are not Trump's base - how much do they dislike him? Is it a lot? Or is a little?
If you look back at 2016, both Ms Clinton and Mr Trump had really high unfavourables. But if you asked people who disliked both "if you had to vote for one of them, which would it be", then they went by large margins for Trump over Clinton.
In Wisconsin, which Trump won by a whisker, people who disliked both Trump and Clinton, went for Trump by 37 percentage points.
Simply: I'm not convinced by the "Republicans" are more enthused argument. And here's why. Back in 1980, Registered Democrats were 45% of the electorate, and Registered Republicans were 40%. Just 15% were Independent. Now, fewer than 29% of voters are Registered Republicans, and Independents have just overtaken them. Enthusing a diminishing portion of the electorate, frankly, isn't enough any more.
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the solutions demanded are reasonable and practical. I love history - the darker the better, in most cases - so let's get all of it out there in the public eye, although again it can't be told just from one single perspective, whether that's woke or unwoke.
That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
The trouble with that, and indeed with the whole direction of much of the well-intentioned anti-discrimination initiatives and legislation, is that it pushes people into regarding racial identity as a key dividing issue in society. It seems to me that that just makes things worse - if every official form you fill in asks to for your racial identity, or if as you suggest you consciously consider racial identity in everything, including harmless social interactions, then your racial identity gradually is going to become firstly dividing and then divisive. I'm not at all convinced that this continual picking at the scab is the way to healing the wound.
Indeed, what you describe sounds awfully like gaslighting.
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the solutions demanded are reasonable and practical. I love history - the darker the better, in most cases - so let's get all of it out there in the public eye, although again it can't be told just from one single perspective, whether that's woke or unwoke.
That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
You don't appear to realise that life gives us evidence for anything we believe. If you were a heavy survivalist conspiracy theorist, believe me, you would see evidence of the approaching end times in your daily life. If you believed Germany was out to take over the world a third time, you would see evidence of it everywhere in your daily life. If you're left wing, you see evidence, hard evidence, of the right wing destroying and undermining the public services that your side has worked so hard to build, every day. If you're right wing, you see evidence of the remorseless progress of the blob, strangling innovation and productivity and absorbing more power to itself, every day. And if you believe that people are racist, you will gather evidence of it, some real, some misconstrued, all the time. It's a perception. Whatever we can or cannot do about racism, what we cannot do is be responsible for, or to, people's own perceptions.
But racism does exist and it's a problem. I'm simply putting forward my proposal for solving the problem. Which is for people to drop the "Oh FFS, whatever next?" type response to Woke and instead to become Woke themselves. Or at least be a little open minded about the idea and give it a shot. I fear there will be little progress made from here otherwise. Or (more likely) the progress will come but it will take much longer.
The only way progress will be made is for the opposite of what you want to see happen, to happen.
The perfect storm for a toe-curling racially insensitive situation to happen is for the black individual to be thinking 'this white person is going to be racist', and for the white person to be thinking 'Oh fuck, this black person is going to think I'm racist'. Some stupidity is almost bound to happen under those circumstances. The way for this situation not to happen, and for a positive interaction to take place, is for neither party to be thinking about racism, for neither to be acutely aware either of their colour or the colour of the individual they are interacting with, and for both to find common ground on something else.
The talk at the moment just increases division between white and black. It is toxically divisive. And it feeds the issue it claims to be trying to resolve.
You see, I don't like questions like that because "to what extent" doesn't feature - it's a binary choice: support or oppose.
As it happens, I support their message on racial equality. But I do not support their far-left politics.
22% percent opposing a movement called 'Black Lives Matter' is pretty ballsy if you ask me. I'd think twice before saying I opposed it if asked on a phone poll, and I'm 100% opposed.
This is a fascinating 40-minute interview. Yes, it's 8 months old, but it's no less fresh for that - the quality of the interviewer and interviewee is excellent. Well worth your time to watch in full:
What's particularly interesting about it is that it featured on PoliticsJoe, which has a very left-ish tinge. However, Oli Dugmore, the interviewer, allows Douglas Murray to develop his arguments, listens to what he has to say, gently challenges him on some of it, and reflects on and considers some of his points - you can see him doing it.
It's very good. No interruptions. No point scoring. It's a sad reminder of how good political interviews used to be.
I think Douglas Murray got fairer treatment here than he would have done on Newsnight or Channel 4 news.
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the solutions demanded are reasonable and practical. I love history - the darker the better, in most cases - so let's get all of it out there in the public eye, although again it can't be told just from one single perspective, whether that's woke or unwoke.
That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
The trouble with that, and indeed with the whole direction of much of the well-intentioned anti-discrimination initiatives and legislation, is that it pushes people into regarding racial identity as a key dividing issue in society. It seems to me that that just makes things worse - if every official form you fill in asks to for your racial identity, or if as you suggest you consciously consider racial identity in everything, including harmless social interactions, then your racial identity gradually is going to become firstly dividing and then divisive. I'm not at all convinced that this continual picking at the scab is the way to healing the wound.
Indeed, what you describe sounds awfully like gaslighting.
Sensible Republicans - of which there are some - should write off the 2016 presidential election and instead should work on two things:
1. Ensuring the Trump Taint does as little damage as possible to the down-ticket elections, especially the Senate races, and
2. Thinking long and hard about how the party can recover from disaster of nominating Trump in the first place. He's toxified the brand to a degree which is even greater than was obvious in 2016. It's not going to be easy to reverse that.
Back in the real world, GOP senators are doing worse than Trump in many recent state polls.
That's not at all surprising. A lot of Trump supporters are suspicious of their GOP Senators, and will not automatically vote for them.
The whole reason Trump is president is because the "sensible Republicans" as Nabavi calls them are more toxic than he is. The idea you get rid of Trump and people will vote for GOP senators is for the birds.
It probably doesn't do a huge amount with his base though, who have been suspicious of the Republican establishment. I think attacks like The Lincoln Project just reinforce that narrative for his supporters.
Ps interesting polling from Michigan - new poll out has Biden only 1 point ahead. That is 2 polls recently with a +1/+2% lead for the Dems in Michigan whereas others have had double digit leads
I thought their 2018 senate polling was strictly mediocre .
Ok, finished the article. What a load of do-hikey. They predicted a 10 point win for Cruz in Texas, he won by 2.5. They predicted a Republican win in Nevada and Arizona. Both Dem wins.
Their 2018 polling was not great.
They were the only pollster to correctly predict Trump would win Pennsylvania and Michigan in 2016 and also the only pollster to correctly predict DeSantis would win Florida in 2018
No, Harris also predicted a DeSantis win. And Harper call PA a tie.
Emphasising their correct calls whilst ignoring their bad misses is the definition of cherry picking.
A tie is not a win as Trafalgar group predicted for Trump in PA in 2016, it was the only pollster who correctly predicted Trump would win the Electoral College
Given the margin by which Trump won Harper was more accurate than Trafalgar.
Trafalgar predicted a 5 point Trump win in Nevada, completely dreadful.
Trafalgar group predicted Trump would win PA, Harper did not predict he would win PA, Trump won PA, Trafalgar group was correct.
I repeat, Trafalgar group was the only pollster that correctly predicted Trump would win Florida, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania in 2016 and therefore the Electoral College.
Even winning Nevada Hillary still lost the EC due to the above states
Two other pollster predicted Trump in North Carolina off the top of my head, Remimgron and some local TV station IIRC.
I'm not quite sure what the UK government is supposed to do about the head of the US government being... what he is.
Burn the White House again. Steal more spoons?*
*I went to school with someone who claimed that his family had a set of silver tea spoons from the sack of the White House.
My god father’s wife is from an old American family.
She went to a dinner at a very grand house in the U.K. and remarked in passing that it was funny to see her family crest on the silver
She woke up the next morning to find the full carafe outside her door with a note of apology from the host... apparently one of his ancestors had “acquired” it in the US in the 1770s...
Mind you, given who tended to be the wealthy in 1770s America....
Trafalgar group seems like a GOP leaning pollster that got lucky in 2016 with the various Trump states. So it's good news for Biden that he's ahead with them in Michigan.
As someone who has been made to feel ashamed of the colour of my skin I find it quite galling that people who claim to be anti-racists are doing the very same to anyone else, black, white or brown.
A white person being aware that they personally are not free of racism does not mean they are ashamed of being white. This does not follow at all.
Out of interest would a white person saying or believing they are free of racism be racist, or simply wrong?
Be racist or right, you mean? - I think most likely is that they are wrong (to believe this) and thus that they are racist. But I do vastly prefer "not free of racism" to distinguish this from the accusatory "being racist" or the even harder "a" racist, which most people are not. Subtle language thing but I think it's important.
I was assuming that someone's self assessment of not being racist would not be accepted by others, with a concern that someone not accepting they are not free of racism would be taken as evidence of that position. And I think whilst you might prefer 'not free of racism' to 'being racist' I don't think most people will see such a distinction, or at least that the distinction will not be treated as being that stark (which is another concern I have, where all sins are treated as equal, eg a slaver versus someone who due to to time probably held racist views) by a great many people. I think attempts at subtlety and nuance is treated by one side as avoiding confronting injustice, and the other as concealing harsher accusations, and I don't think either position is entirely baseless.
But I admire and respect your engagement in debate and civilized tone even though instinctively I do not think I can go as far as you do.
Thank you. Much appreciated.
To nutshell bigly - I think wokeness is a more benign force than the blase rejection of it is.
Can you define 'facing it'? Because I have no problem whatsoever talking about things like innate and societal bias where the evidence is clear and the solutions demanded are reasonable and practical. I love history - the darker the better, in most cases - so let's get all of it out there in the public eye, although again it can't be told just from one single perspective, whether that's woke or unwoke.
That's what I understand by 'facing it'. I'm very far from convinced that that's what most people on the woke side mean by it. I genuinely don't even know if they have an official list of demands, who wrote it, what validity it has, etc.
OK, ready? One s-o-c para -
Starts with facing it in yourself. Armed with this awareness, you begin to look at the world a little differently. For example, you start to notice when people of other ethnicities are treated just that iota less respectfully than they would be if they were white. And you call this out if it's others doing it. If it's you doing it, you stop. You notice stereotyping more. Again, if it's others you have a word. If it's you, you stop. These are just examples but you get the point. It's behavioural reform more than structural. We have the law right. We don't need to change the law. It's about culture and culture is the aggregated behaviour of individuals. We can do some "policy" things, sure we can, e.g. quotas in areas where it's appropriate and effective, this sort of thing, but that should not be the focus. Racism makes its presence felt in small ways manifested many many times in personal interactions. Therefore it should be fought the same way - by removing racism to the maximum extent possible from those interactions. We need (preferably) the whole of the population to "face it" in this sense - and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It won't be that hard, it's no big deal for most, but this is what we need. It is what Woke means. So to eradicate racism we need to become - quite literally - Woke Nation. We managed to become Leave Nation, didn't we, more's the pity, so wtf can't we now redeem ourselves and do this?
The trouble with that, and indeed with the whole direction of much of the well-intentioned anti-discrimination initiatives and legislation, is that it pushes people into regarding racial identity as a key dividing issue in society. It seems to me that that just makes things worse - if every official form you fill in asks to for your racial identity, or if as you suggest you consciously consider racial identity in everything, including harmless social interactions, then your racial identity gradually is going to become firstly dividing and then divisive. I'm not at all convinced that this continual picking at the scab is the way to healing the wound.
Indeed, what you describe sounds awfully like gaslighting.
Comments
The latter seems to be the entire explanation for the massive spike in R seen in Germany which, of course, has a much lower total number of cases than the UK: the smaller said total, the more R will spike in response to these outbreaks. It frankly doesn't matter much if R reaches 3, 4 or 5 in Germany, provided that those additional cases are effectively quarantined before new chains of transmission can become established.
Internal. Thinking less well of people because of race.
External. Treating people less well because of race.
And if the internal does not bleed into the external, there is no problem. But of course it often will.
If it was F A Newauthor would they have stuck by him/her as solidly as well?
Not everything is political for heaven's sake, get a grip. He's always been unkempt, but someone might still believe he is looking particularly bad at present. Likewise, it was perfectly possible to dislike Corbyn intensely and note he had smartened himself up considerably and sometimes even looked quite dapper.
And the last million cases have clocked up in 8 days.
https://twitter.com/LabourList/status/1275073578132664320?s=20
Among my woke friends, I try to give the anti-woke perspective, and I probably hadn't adjusted to the very different character of the discussion here. Nevertheless, I've already been told that I and "my movement" have already demonstrably lost the argument. If you can see both sides, I guess that just makes you an extremist on both sides, depending on who you're talking to!
- Successful Independence Leader of 400 million non-white people
- Hindu Indian
- Successful in education, ie. he was Qualified Lawyer
- He normally wore white loincloths, so he was "acting" white...
- But then again Churchill hated him ("a half-naked f*ckir")
- So if Churchill hated Gandhi, why do they hate him?
To my mind, that is what most normal people have been doing for the last several decades. I'm not terribly keen on 'calling out' others, for the simple reason that if they said or did something that merited calling out I'd probably be heading in the opposite direction from them.
My issues with the above as an answer are:
1. Has anyone told the campaigners or protesters that that's 'what Woke means'? I haven't seen 'reduce racism in personal interactions' anywhere, but I have seen a lot of other stuff that has nothing to do with that. It needs to be purged if you want a hearing on the reasonable proposals.
2. As others have pointed out, human psychology is complex and dwelling obsessively on these issues can have the opposite effect from the one you intend. I was quite politically moderate as an adolescent - it was reading the Guardian regularly that decisively politicized me - against all their positions!
3. The actual eradication of racism seems pretty unachievable. It's a bit like trying to eliminate lying, or farting - it's what humans do, although they can try to minimize it in civilized gatherings. You admit it yourself with your assessment that 9/10 people are racist - in the lingo of pandemics, what's the point in a diagnostic that is so unspecific that it catches almost everyone?
4. I'm instinctively against thought-policing, in line with the Elizabethan eschewal of 'windows into men’s souls'. People should be encouraged to improve themselves, but not shamed if they fall short of some theoretical standard.
10% heck 20% of your average authors income won’t earn you much money given that most authors earn just over £16,000 a year.
Edit corrected figures after double checking at https://www.create.ac.uk/blog/2019/05/02/uk-authors-earnings-and-contracts-2018-a-survey-of-50000-writers/
EDIT - Then key, obviously, is whether they know they are not free of racism when they say they are - thus lying - or they have genuinely convinced themselves that they are. Very different things.
But I admire and respect your engagement in debate and civilized tone even though instinctively I do not think I can go as far as you do.
The "he cares so much about his legacy he won't quit" argument is unconvincing. More likely he will do increasingly crazy stuff until it's obvious he's got to go. My feeling is before the Republican convention is more likely than after. Mary Trump will have considered her timing. Her publisher could have planned the book release for October if they'd wanted, but they chose late July.
Incidentally, I don't get "gaslighting". No matter how times I look it up or have it explained to me I still don't think it really makes sense.
It's a very strange term.
They have a great team of lawyers who can help you to fight back.
I am trying to find a book I read a while back. The subject, the Nazi's and how they tried to deal with the anti-social.
Essentially, Germany in the 20 and 30s had the same social problems in some areas that all modern societies have.
Homelessness from mental illness. Drunken, abusive, parents. Children running wild etc.
Enter the Nazis. At first, they took the view of "Must rescue Aryans" - so programs were put in place. Social workers, even special housing.
The problematic people proved intractably problematic.
The special housing was replaced with concrete, un-burnable blocks. Surrounded by barbed wire....
And so it went, round and round the circles of hell. In the end the completely intractable ended up in Dachau.
Finally, with the out break of war, the men were herded into the army. Where they responded to disciple about as well as might be expected. A lot of them ended up being shot - the German army executed 50,000 soldiers in WWII. Many of the survivors ended up in the punishment battalions, and some graduated to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirlewanger_Brigade
Any idea what the title was?
And then, we'll get a backlash. Probably a Trump or worse.
Healthy?
No. Stupid.
Emphasising their correct calls whilst ignoring their bad misses is the definition of cherry picking.
https://twitter.com/shirkerism/status/1274993022799949833?s=20
https://twitter.com/shirkerism/status/1274994546905174016?s=20
"Man accused of assaulting judge
Khairi Saadallah denied common assault of District Judge Sophie Toms during a short hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court yesterday.
The alleged incident happened at Reading Magistrates' Court on March 25, where the defendant was being sentenced for two previous convictions.
Saadallah was remanded in custody.
Deputy Senior District Judge Tan Ikram told the court yesterday that he would not be able to hear the trial due to his professional connection with Judge Toms.
Saadallah, of Basingstoke Road, Reading, will go on trial at Westminster Magistrates' Court on October 11."
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Man+accused+of+assaulting+judge;+JUSTICE-a0596891008
The best way to deal with preconceptions that one has but doesn't feel great about having, and that one would actually like to lose, is to meet more people from the group one has the preconceptions about, not to wash their feet, to express some kind of guilt, or to write sonorous declarations, but to converse as equals, which will involve hearing about their own preconceptions, ones that THEY would prefer to lose too. Call it "truth and reconciliation" for the soundbite.
But, that's at odds with what they say publicly about it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hSJ48n51qgs
MGM tried to destroy all the prints of the British original.
The punch line is “Pas de Calais”.
For those who wish to follow his example, apply here:
https://www.britishsummerfruits.co.uk/jobs
Does that count?
1) Violent and aggressive acts against people of a different race
2) Deliberately avoiding people of different race and not wanting them in your life
3) Direct Discrimination against people of different race
4) Indirect and institutional discrimination against people of different race
5) Using outdated language about race that others may find offensive but not intended to cause offence
6) Using deliberately offensive language against other races
7) Conscious observations of racial differences, without thinking about broader context
8) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is aware of and lets happen
9) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is unaware of
10) Subconscious bias against people of different race that the person is aware of and tries to control/mitigate
It's because he wrote this sort of thing: "Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian location should be chosen for dumping down all kaffirs of the town, passes my comprehension. Of course, under my suggestion, the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location. About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians I must confess I feel most strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population, and it is an undue tax on even the proverbial patience of my countrymen."
Like nearly all the stuff, it is quotemined, shorn of historical context, stated ignoring the rest of the man's career, shouted loudly through a megaphone, and anyone asking sensible questions is branded as supporting the alleged evil.
That is, the bog standard campaigning playbook for this type of campaign, as used by the whole lot of so called 'liberation' campaigners.
Very difficult indeed to take seriously. Unfortunately it often works on institutions suffering from lack of confidence or cowardice.
There may be some merit in the campaign, but when the nature of it is trying to rub things out rather than think about them, it is tricky to see through the surface.
Just over one a month... really hard work... for your $37,500...
One reason is that Trump's popularity/unpopularity is quite firmly baked in but Biden's less so. Trump has drifted down in recent weeks but - looking over the four years - the lovers and haters are remarkably stable in their view over time compared with other presidencies. And, crucially, Trump is a very effective negative campaigner - it would surprise me if he could significantly rescue his own ratings, but not if he could drag Biden's down into the gutter with him. If both candidates have negative 10% or worse net approval... well, one of them still has to win as 2016 showed.
The other is that the evidence seems to be that he's much more likely to repeat the trick of losing the popular vote but winning the electoral college than Biden is to do that trick on him. That's based on Biden's state lead being a bit less typically in the key states he must swing than nationally. He might still win it with a 2-3% national lead... but you'd not be all that confident, whereas you'd be very confident if Trump won it by 2-3% that he'd win the electoral college.
From the latest CNN poll
https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2020/images/06/08/rel6a.-.race.and.2020.pdf
2012 November 2-4
Obama voters
Vote for Obama / Vote against Romney / No Opinion
80% / 18% / 2%
Romney voters
Vote for Romney / vote against Obama / No Opinion
60% / 38% / 2%
They also have other historical figures which largely confirm this relationship to the victor. Generally, it's much better to have people voting for you than against the other guy.
'Caesar, it was a trap. There were two of them.'
The suggested law they came up with was quite definitely racist.
Bill Clinton in 1992 and Reagan in 1980 both had more people voting for them and were the only candidates to beat incumbent presidents in the last 40 years
Trafalgar predicted a 5 point Trump win in Nevada, completely dreadful.
As it happens, I support their message on racial equality. But I do not support their far-left politics.
She went to a dinner at a very grand house in the U.K. and remarked in passing that it was funny to see her family crest on the silver
She woke up the next morning to find the full carafe outside her door with a note of apology from the host... apparently one of his ancestors had “acquired” it in the US in the 1770s...
{Subconscious bias against PB posters of different tribe that the person is aware of and tries to control/mitigate}
Even I laughed at one or two of them.
That will lead to injustices of its own - by design - and lots of people won't like it. They will resent the policymakers and those who benefit from it too.
So it's more likely to fuel racial tensions, which is why I oppose it so strongly.
The way to do this is to get people talking and get them to understand each other's perspective better, and take them on a journey with you.
I repeat, Trafalgar group was the only pollster that correctly predicted Trump would win Florida, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania in 2016 and therefore the Electoral College.
Even winning Nevada Hillary still lost the EC due to the above states
Because I think that it ultimately depends on the depth of dislike people have for a candidate.
Let me give you an example. Back in 1997, Martin Bell stood against Neil Hamilton in Tatton. Few people voted for Martin Bell. Lots of people voted against Neil Hamilton. And the latter lost badly.
So, really the question is - for the 65% of the population that are not Trump's base - how much do they dislike him? Is it a lot? Or is a little?
If you look back at 2016, both Ms Clinton and Mr Trump had really high unfavourables. But if you asked people who disliked both "if you had to vote for one of them, which would it be", then they went by large margins for Trump over Clinton.
In Wisconsin, which Trump won by a whisker, people who disliked both Trump and Clinton, went for Trump by 37 percentage points.
This time around, people who dislike both prefer Biden by large margins over Trump. Now maybe they won't come out to vote this time around. But if they do...
Simply: I'm not convinced by the "Republicans" are more enthused argument. And here's why. Back in 1980, Registered Democrats were 45% of the electorate, and Registered Republicans were 40%. Just 15% were Independent. Now, fewer than 29% of voters are Registered Republicans, and Independents have just overtaken them. Enthusing a diminishing portion of the electorate, frankly, isn't enough any more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO4qhwEPshw
What's particularly interesting about it is that it featured on PoliticsJoe, which has a very left-ish tinge. However, Oli Dugmore, the interviewer, allows Douglas Murray to develop his arguments, listens to what he has to say, gently challenges him on some of it, and reflects on and considers some of his points - you can see him doing it.
It's very good. No interruptions. No point scoring. It's a sad reminder of how good political interviews used to be.
I think Douglas Murray got fairer treatment here than he would have done on Newsnight or Channel 4 news.
Full respect to Oli Dugmore.
So, I don't find the term very helpful.
To nutshell bigly - I think wokeness is a more benign force than the blase rejection of it is.
But it's a great term when used precisely.